Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

KING'S SPEECH (Answer to Address).

THE VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Mr. Cross) reported His Majesty's Answer to the Address, as followeth:

I have received with great satisfaction the loyal and dutiful expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I have opened the present Session of Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA AND JAPAN.

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will take the initiative, through the League of Nations, for further increasing the supply of medical necessities to China, in view of the heavy casualties caused among Chinese civilians by the Japanese bombardment of open cities?

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Viscount Cranborne): At a meeting of the Council Committee for Technical Collaboration between the League of Nations and China, on 29th September, the United Kingdom Representative took the initiative in suggesting that the Committee should ask the Council to request the Assembly to increase the credits already sanctioned, in order that the essential relief work might be undertaken. A report was subsequently adopted by the Assembly, and the Council requested the Secretary-General to summon a meeting of a Sub-Committee of the Health Committee to draw up a plan to assist the Chinese authorities to organise a campaign against epidemics and to communicate the plan to the Supervisory Financial Commission.

Mr. Wedgwood Benn: Is it not a fact that out of the 2,000,000 Swiss francs that were voted, China was asked to pay no less than 1,600,000?

Viscount Cranborne: The exact facts are that the 1,370,000 francs will be supplied out of the Chinese subscription to the League for 1937. The money would normally have gone to the League Budget, but this year it has been earmarked for this special purpose. It will be seen that China gains by this arrangement.

Mr. Benn: Is it not a further fact that no member of the League is called upon to pay any supplementary contribution on account of this arrangement?

Viscount Cranborne: Other members of the League would have the advantage of this sum of 1,370,000 francs.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the urgent need in China, would the Minister do his utmost to expedite the sending of medical supplies?

Viscount Cranborne: I have no reason to think that there will be any undue delay.

Mr. Benn: Why was the Fund reserved for epidemic relief and not given to the assistance of bomb victims?

Viscount Cranborne: There was only a limited amount of money and it had to be considered which was the most useful purpose for it.

Captain Plugge: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the objective of the British representatives at the coming Nine-Power Conference in Brussels will be to avoid, if possible, any incomplete compromise which will re-start the present trouble at a later date; and whether they will work for a permanent settlement.

Viscount Cranborne: The desirability of a lasting settlement will certainly be a foremost consideration in the minds of the representatives of His Majesty's Government.

Mr. Mander: Can we have an assurance that there will be no attempt to emulate the Hoare-Laval episode?

Oral Answers to Questions — SPAIN.

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many British ships are now held prisoner in ports under the control of General Franco, and for how long they have been detained in custody; whether any satisfactory reply has been received to British protests lodged concerning these ships; and what steps it is proposed to take to prevent future arrests of British ships on the high seas?

Viscount Cranborne: The following British ships have been recently captured and detained in ports under the control of General Franco:

1. The steamship "Mirupanu," captured on 24th July.
2. The steamship "Caper," captured on 10th August.
3. The steamship "Seven Seas Spray," captured on 1st September.
4. The steamship "Stanwold," captured on 8th September.
5. The steamship "Bobie," captured on 3rd October.
6. The steamship "Dover Abbey," captured on 5th October.
7. The steamship "Yorkbrook," captured on 5th October.

As a result of representations made by His Majesty's Ambassador at Hendaye, the Nationalist authorities stated on 31st October that orders had been issued for the release of all these vessels. I understand that the "Seven Seas Spray" and the "Stanwold" have already left, and His Majesty's Government are confident that the orders for the release of the remaining vessels will soon be carried out.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the fact that these were deliberate acts of piracy, will the Government claim compensation for the detention of those ships?

Viscount Cranborne: I should like notice of that question.

Mr. Shinwell: Can we have an assurance that the seamen of the vessels have been in receipt of pay and that their dependants have been properly cared for?

Viscount Cranborne: I should like notice of that question also.

Sir Percy Harris: Has it been alleged that these ships were carrying munitions; if not, what justification can there be for detaining them?

Mr. Benn: Why are no steps taken against the property of the insurgents which is in this country?

Viscount Cranborne: I am afraid I must ask for notice of that question also. I think the opinion of the House will be that this is an exceedingly satisfactory answer that these ships are to be released.

Mr. Benn: If the Government wish to obtain compensation for these men and ships, why do they not proceed against the property which the Franco party has in this country?

Colonel Wedgwood: May I ask the Noble Lord—

Mr. Speaker: rose—

Colonel Wedgwood: May we not know more about the release of these ships?

Mr. Speaker: There are many Questions on the Paper, and we cannot go on any longer asking supplementary questions on this subject.

Mr. James Griffiths: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any statement in reference to the position of the Asturian refugees; and what efforts have been made to assist their evacuation?

Viscount Cranborne: The hon. Member will recall that the Prime Minister stated in the House on 21st October that some 30,000 refugees from the Asturias were removed in British ships under the protection of the British flag prior to the fall of Gijon. As the whole of the Asturian coast is now under the control of the insurgent authorities, it is naturally now impossible to arrange for any further evacuations except with the latter's consent. At the same time His Majesty's Government are always ready to use their good offices whenever it seems possible that humanitarian ends may be served by an approach to the two parties to the conflict.

Mr. Griffiths: Has the Noble Lord any information as to the way in which prisoners are being treated by General Franco's army?

Viscount Cranborne: There is a question about that on the Paper later on.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the figures of exports of foodstuffs and munitions,


respectively, from Germany and Italy to Spanish territory under the control of General Franco during the past 12 months?

Viscount Cranborne: I regret to say that the statistics available do not enable these figures to be established.

Mr. Shinwell: Do we understand from that answer that it is possible to obtain the figures of Soviet exports to Spain and yet it is not possible to obtain the figures of German and Italian exports?

Viscount Cranborne: The figures given by my right hon. Friend in the House for Soviet exports were given by the Soviet Government and published in the English Press. The figures which may be available for German and Italian exports are of a very general character, and therefore I could not draw from them any detailed conclusions that I could give to the House.

Mr. Shinwell: Are we to understand from that answer, and from the inability of the Noble Lord to obtain statistics on this matter, that it is not clear whether the exports from Soviet Russia to Spain are higher or lower than the exports from Germany and Italy to that country?

Viscount Cranborne: The hon. Gentleman can draw from my answer exactly what is in the answer.

Mr. Shinwell: Is it fair that the Noble Lord's right hon. Friend should use the argument that he does in relation to Soviet Russia, in face of their inability to obtain the other figures?

Viscount Cranborne: My right hon. Friend uses any accurate information that he has.

Mr. H. G. Williams: Does my Noble Friend experience any difficulty in getting information with regard to trade statistics from Nationalist Spain on account of the fact that this Government does not recognise the Government of that territory?

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any reply has been received from General Franco to the appeal for mercy to civilian and military prisoners made to him by the British and French Governments; and whether further representations will be made on behalf of His Majesty's Government with this object in view?

Viscount Cranborne: The House will be aware that on 20th October His Majesty's Government made a communication through His Majesty's Ambassador at Hendaye to the Salamanca authorities urging clemency in their treatment of prisoners. I am glad to say that in reply the insurgent authorities indicated on 22nd October that clemency would be shown in the areas occupied.

Miss Rathbone: Is the Noble Lord aware that, according to a special correspondent of the "Sunday Times," the standard for the death penalty in these conquered territories is combatant or noncombatant officers who have held any kind of office under the Republican Government; and, in view of that information, will he take steps to get an impartial, independent report of exactly what is happening in the trials of prisoners in the conquered territories?

Viscount Cranborne: That is really a different subject. I was asked whether any reply had been received, and I have given the reply that has been received.

Miss Rathbone: Does not my question really arise out of the reply?

Mr. Kirkwood: The fact that Mr. Speaker allowed it to be asked is sufficient justification for a reply.

Mr. H. G. Williams: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has any statement to make in respect of the alleged attack on His Majesty's ship "Basilisk"?

Mr. Thurtle: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, in view of the fact that the officer in command of His Majesty's destroyer "Basilisk" reported that his ship had been attacked by a submarine off the east coast of Spain recently and subsequently reported that no such attack had taken place, whether he will give the reason or reasons which caused the officer in question to change his mind in this way regarding the reality of the attack?

The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Duff Cooper): While His Majesty's ships "Basilisk" and "Boreas" were patrolling 15 miles off Cape San Antonia, at about 9 a.m. on 4th October, a track resembling that of a torpedo was seen from the "Basilisk," approaching the ship. A depth charge attack was immediately carried out by the


"Basilisk." The "Basilisk" and "Boreas" then proceeded to search fox the submarine whose presence was sus-spected, being joined later by five other destroyers and a flying boat. No submarine was discovered. On the return of the "Basilisk" and "Boreas" to Gibraltar on 7th October the incident was investigated by the senior naval officer, and after full consideration of all the evidence it was decided that a mistake had been made and that no submarine had in fact been present at the time of the supposed attack. An announcement was, therefore, made to this effect.

Mr. Thurtle: Was it not possible for a submarine to be actually at this spot although it was not discovered by these five warships? Why did they come to the conclusion that a submarine was not there?

Mr. Cooper: I do not think it would be desirable to go into all the evidence, but it was considered by the Commander of Destroyers and by the Senior Naval Officer on the spot, as the result of the complete investigation—there was no prejudice in either direction—that, as a matter of fact, a submarine was not present.

Mr. Thurtle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it has been suggested that in fact a submarine was destroyed, but, to avoid international complications, this was glossed over?

Mr. Cooper: I can assure the hon. Member that there is no truth whatever in that suggestion.

Mr. Gallacher: Where did the torpedo come from?

Oral Answers to Questions — PALESTINE.

ITALIAN BROADCASTS.

Captain Peter Macdonald: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, since the conclusion of the recent Anglo-Italian Agreement, the British Government have had any cause for complaint with regard to the provocation of the Arabs by the Italian press or broadcasting stations; and whether, in particular, any complaint has been made with regard to the Italian broadcast and press comments on the recent arrest of the members of the Arab Higher Committee in Jerusalem?

Viscount Cranborne: In a reply to the Member for Nuneaton (Lieut.-Commander Fletcher) my right hon. Friend stated on 28th June last that the question of Italian anti-British propaganda in Palestine and Arabia had been taken up more than once, both with the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs in Rome and with the Italian Ambassador in London. My right hon. Friend further stated that he was glad to be able to inform the House that the tone of the broadcasts from Bari had lately shown an improvement. Since that date it has not been considered necessary to make any representations to the Italian Government on press or broadcast questions: but in the meanwhile full reports have been received by His Majesty's Government on the attitude adopted by the Italian press and wireless towards the recent troubles in Palestine, and these reports are at present under consideration.

Mr. Mander: Are the Government receiving full reports of these broadcasts, and do they know what is actually said?

Viscount Cranborne: Yes, I have just said so in my answer.

MUFTI OF JERUSALEM.

Colonel Wedgwood: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government are pressing the French Government to extradite the Mufti of Jerusalem?

Viscount Cranborne: No, Sir.

Colonel Wedgwood: Would it not be possible to suggest to the Mufti that he should go to Rome, where he would probably be welcome?

ARAB HIGHER COMMITTEE.

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the reason for the arrest and deportation from Palestine of members of the Arab Higher Committee; what was meant by the statement issued by the Government of Palestine on 1st October declaring the members of the Arab Committee morally responsible for the deaths of Arabs and Jews, the attempted murder of Mr. R. G. B. Spicer, inspector-general of the Palestine police, and the assassination of Mr. Lewis Andrews and of Constable McEwan; whether the Government were in possession of proof of the direct complicity of


members of the Arab Committee in these terrorist acts; and, if so, why this was not stated?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): The action taken against the Arab Higher Committee was a direct result of the recent campaign of murder and terrorism, which had become greatly intensified and culminated in the assassination of Mr. Andrews, the District Commissioner, and his escort, Constable McEwan, on their way to attend church at Nazareth on Sunday, 26th September. His Majesty's Government were satisfied that the activities of the Arab Higher Committee had been prejudicial to the maintenance of public security, and that they must be regarded as morally responsible for these events.

Mr. Gallacher: As one who has had associations in the past with deportees, and who realises the unfounded rumours that can be utilised against them, is the Minister not going to reconsider his attitude, and adopt a different attitude for solving the problem?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: No. I say, quite definitely not.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the Minister not aware that he is going from one desperate expedient to another, and that the situation becomes worse all the time?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: For a whole year the Government have exercised exemplary patience in the face of murder, outrage and rebellion, and we have come to the conclusion that forbearance has been mistaken for weakness. It is essential to restore law and order in the country if the moderate Arabs' lives, as well as Jewish lives, are to be saved.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the Minister not aware that it is not patience that is wanted? It is a sensible policy that is wanted.

FRUIT MARKETING.

Major Procter: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the newly-formed Colonial Marketing Board will be giving attention to the problem created by the necessity of marketing increased supplies of Palestine oranges in Great Britain during the forthcoming winter season?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Generally speaking, the citrus producers of Palestine are

already much better organised than most Colonial producers, and I question whether they will find it necessary to ask for the assistance of the Board; but if they do so, I do not doubt that the Board will consider any such request on its merits.

Major Procter: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the substantial development of the economic prosperity of Palestine dependent upon the marketing of Palestine citrus fruit, better arrangements have been made this year for the transport, storing and shipping of these products from that mandated territory; and whether, in particular, full advantage will be taken of the new port facilities now available at Tel Aviv?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: So far as the Palestine Government is concerned, further improvements made since last season include the completion of the Jaffa-Haifa road and other road construction, also the building of an additional transit shed at Haifa, where work on a new cargo jetty is proceeding. A comprehensive scheme of research into the wastage of citrus fruit in transit is being undertaken by the Government and the citrus growers working in co-operation. As to the last part of the question, it is for the exporters themselves to decide which port they will use.

MURDERED BRITISH OFFICIALS (DEPENDANTS' PENSIONS).

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what arrangements have been made in the way of special provision as to pensions for the widows and dependants of officials murdered in the course of their duty in Palestine; and whether the treatment accorded is on similar lines to that provided in the Crown Colonies and in the case of the British officials serving in Egypt, and, in particular, what has been done in the case of the widow of Mr. Andrews, recently murdered on duty in Palestine?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor) on 1st November. The provision under the Palestine pension law is similar to that under the pension laws of the Colonial Empire generally. I am inquiring as to


the provision under the laws applicable to British subjects in the service of the Egyptian Government, and I will communicate on that point with the hon. Member. The arrangements to be made in the case of the widow of Mr. Andrews are at present under special consideration.

Sir J. Mellor: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what special compensation is intended to be given in cases of assassination?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I am discussing that matter with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in an endeavour to get a principle established.

LYDDA AIRPORT.

Mr. Lyons: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can make any further statement upon the destruction of the airport at Lydda and the present facilities for air communication at any alternative place?

Mr. T. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the recent destruction of the Lydda airport on the eve of its adoption by regular commercial air services between England and India, he will consider the desirability of authorising the construction of a new airport in an area of greater security; and whether, in this connection, he will consider the desirability of investigating the possibility of establishing an aerodrome nearer to the centre of population comprised by Tel-Aviv?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Shortly after midnight on the night of 15th-16th October a large party of neighbouring Arabs penetrated the premises of the Lydda airport and, having cut the wires, set on fire and completely burned out the buildings housing the Customs and Passport Offices and the wireless installation. Efficient wireless communication was quickly re-established by means of receivers lent by the Royal Air Force. Temporary arrangements for feeding passengers and for the discharge of formalities have been made in the hangars, and I understand that these arrangements are capable of improvement in a few weeks' time. So far as I am aware, it has not been necessary to provide alternative facilities at other airports. I do not consider that this

incident would justify consideration of the construction of a new airport. The present site was selected after the most careful consideration of all the circumstances. I should add that the Lydda airport is now under military guard.

Mr. Lyons: Can my right hon. Friend say whether there was any guard at all at the Lydda Airport at the time of this disturbance, in view of the conditions obtaining in Palestine, and whether the ordinary service from Alexandria and Cairo to Lydda, which is the only full service by air communication, is still existing?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Yes, Sir, there is communication with Egypt, either Cairo or Alexandria. There was a police guard.

Mr. Lyons: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the kind of communication now existing from either Alexandria or Cairo to Lydda, which is the only system of air communication that exists, is the same now as it was before the airport was burnt out?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I should like to have notice of that question.

Colonel Wedgwood: Were British officers in charge at Lydda?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I think so.

JEWISH IMMIGRATION.

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why, in view of the fact that the Royal Commission on Palestine recommended that a political high level of Jewish immigration should be fixed for the next five years at 12,000 per annum as an alternative to the policy of partition, the British Government have adopted it in addition to partition; and why this departure from the recommendations of the Royal Commission was made?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I cannot accept the hon. Member's suggestion that His Majesty's Government have adopted the recommendation of the Royal Commission for a "political high level" of Jewish immigration for the next five years. The recommendation of the Royal Commission in favour of such a proposal envisaged the indefinite continuance of the existing Mandate, and the Commission made no recommendation for dealing with immigration during the immediate interim period between publication of the report


and final agreement to terminate the Mandate and establish a treaty system on a basis of the tripartite division of the country. As a new labour immigration schedule was due in August, an immediate decision was required, and His Majesty's Government felt justified in limiting, as a purely interim measure, Jewish immigration in all categories to a total of 8,000 for the eight-months period August, 1937, to March, 1938. As regards the arrangements to be made after that date, I cannot do better than quote from the statement made by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, at the last session of the Council of the League of Nations. He said;
The Permanent Mandates Commission have drawn attention to the reduction of Jewish immigration to a total of 8,000 persons in the next eight months. That, as the Commission recognised, is a purely temporary measure designed to meet temporary and exceptional conditions….
What is to happen when the period of eight months is over, that is to say, after the 31st March, 1938, must necessarily depend upon the progress made in the meanwhile with the partition scheme. If the scheme has by that time reached a stage of provisional acceptance, the whole question of immigration as affecting both the Arab and the Jewish areas will clearly have to be considered on a fresh basis.

Mr. Mander: Is it not the fact that certain ordinances have recently been published altering the system of immigration?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Yes, Sir, an ordinance has been approved to implement the decision announced by me in this House last July.

Mr. Mander: Do I understand that this is only temporary?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Certainly.

Mr. Kirkwood: Is it the case that, say a Jewish doctor wishes to go to Palestine, before he can get into Palestine he has to be prepared to put down £1,000?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Yes, Sir, under the principle of regulation by economic absorptive capacity. Anybody with £1,000 would be allowed in, but there are various categories. There is always the principle of economic absorptive capacity, and there are certain categories, for example, capitalists, labour immigrants, dependants and the like, and

whether the doctor would have been admitted or not depends upon which category he was in.

Mr. Kirkwood: I have got the reply from the Home Office that if my friend the doctor wishes to get into Palestine, he has to be prepared to put down i,000. He has no country. He cannot get back to his native land, because he is a Jew. He has been educated as Glasgow University, but he is without any country.

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I know perfectly well that, since the recent trouble in Central Europe, there have been, from Germany and Poland, a very large number of Jewish doctors who have already become established in Palestine, and to establish more doctors in Palestine might only deprive the present Jewish doctors of a chance of making a living.

Colonel Wedgwood: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this departure of limiting the number of Jews, not by economic absorptive capacity, but by the act of this Government, is regarded by the Jews in Palestine, and by those who approved of the Mandate of this country, as being a deliberate breach of the Mandate?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: We have always denied that this is any breach of the Mandate I know perfectly well that the Jews wish to be back under the old economic absorptive capacity system. As I made perfectly clear in this House, for the interim period, that is, for eight months, we decided to adopt this arbitrary figure.

Oral Answers to Questions — MANDATED TERRITORIES.

Mr. Vyvyan Adams: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make it clear beyond doubt that His Majesty's Government can in no circumstances contemplate any cession to Germany of territory over which Great Britain at present exercises political control?

Viscount Cranborne: I have nothing to add to previous statements on this subject made on behalf of His Majesty's Government.

Mr. Adams: Will the Noble Lord see that a copy of that reassurance reaches the office of the "Times" and other prominent pro-Nazi organs?

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY AND BELGIUM.

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in the view of his advisers, as a result of the recent statement by Germany with regard to the position of Belgium, the latter country is still held to be bound by that paragraph of Article 16 of the Covenant of the League of Nations by which League members are bound to afford passage through their territory to the forces of any of the members of the League which are co-operating to protect the Covenant of the League?

Viscount Cranborne: The hon. Member will, I am sure, agree that no declaration made by any other Government can affect the obligations of Belgium as a member of the League of Nations.

Mr. Mander: Then the situation really has not been very much altered by the signing of this agreement?

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMAN AMBASSADOR.

Mr. Day: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the number of interviews he has had with the German Ambassador since the latter took up his appointment in London?

Viscount Cranborne: It is part of my right hon. Friend's duties to receive heads of foreign missions in London whenever there is need for discussion between them. He has naturally had many interviews with the German Ambassador, but it would not be in accordance with diplomatic practice, at least in this country, to enter into any details as to their number.

Oral Answers to Questions — PASSPORT OFFICE.

Mr. Day: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the total expenditure of the Passport Office, including the branch office at Liverpool, for the 12 months ended to the last convenient date; and the total sum received in fees during the same period?

Viscount Cranborne: During the 12 months ended 30th September last the total expenditure (including salaries, rent and maintenance of offices, stationery, carriage of mails, etc.) of the Passport Office and branch Passport Office at Liverpool amounted to £71,036. The net

receipts, that is, the total sum received less the sixpenny Revenue stamp on the new passports, during the same period amounted to £246,121.

Mr. Day: In view of the very large difference in these two amounts, will the Noble Lord consider reducing some of the visa charges, especially for the United States?

Viscount Cranborne: As the hon. Member will know, this subject has been under constant consideration, but up to now it has been thought that the loss of revenue cannot be envisaged.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARGENTINE RAILWAYS (BRITISH INVESTORS).

Sir Nicholas Grattan-Doyle: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will notify the Argentine Government that the treatment of the British capital in the Anglo-Argentine railroads is regarded with dissatisfaction by British investors; and that, if the Argentine Government desires a renewal of the Trade Agreement when it comes up for review 18 months hence, the treatment of the railroads will form part of the negotiations about Argentine meat and foodstuffs?

Viscount Cranborne: As stated by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reply to a question by my hon. Friend on 29th July last, the general position of investors in Argentine railway securities has shown a welcome improvement, but the position in respect of certain of these securities still remains unsatisfactory to the holders. All questions relating to the renewal of the present Trade Agreement with the Argentine will, of course, fall for consideration in the light of circumstances when the time comes.

Mr. T. Williams: Does the Minister regard it as an important part of the function of those who negotiate trade agreements to act as debt collectors for the bondholders?

Oral Answers to Questions — CHILE (FOREIGN DEBT).

Sir N. Grattan-Doyle: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the Chilean Government's desire to negotiate an Anglo-Chilean commercial agreement, he will inform the Chilean Government that the


negotiations must provide for a cessor of the default on interest and sinking funds of pre-War Chilean loans raised in London on the assumption that the Chilean Government would honour its obligations?

Viscount Cranborne: The question of the Chilean foreign debt is receiving the constant attention of the accredited representatives of the bondholders, and His Majesty's Government will not fail to give full consideration to any representations which they may make at this or any other time.

Oral Answers to Questions — GREAT BRITAIN AND PORTUGAL (DEFENCE RELATIONS).

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if any recent conversations have taken place with Portugal concerning the Defence relations of this country and Portugal?

Viscount Cranborne: Consultations have been, and still are, in progress between my right hon. Friend and the Portuguese Ambassador in London regarding the best means by which a closer contact can be established between the Defence Services of the two countries.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: What is the object of effecting this closer contact between these two Defence Services?

Viscount Cranborne: I think that the House as a whole would be very glad to have closer contact with this nation.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

OFFICERS' MARRIAGE ALLOWANCES AND WIDOWS' PENSIONS.

Rear-Admiral Sir Murray Sueter: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is now in a position to make any statement with regard to marriage allowances for naval officers; whether the pensions for widows of naval officers will be reviewed as the cost of living is now higher; and can the date be given when the present scale of widows' pensions was fixed?

Mr. Cooper: I am not yet in a position to make a statement with regard to marriage allowances for naval officers, but the investigation of this question is being

actively pursued. A review of the pensions for widows of naval officers is not at present contemplated. The existing rates were fixed in 1920 and 1921 when the cost of living was higher than it is now.

Sir M. Sueter: Can the First Lord say for how many months or years that matter is to remain under investigation?

PORT EDGAR BASE.

Mr. Mathers: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is in a position to announce that the naval base at Port Edgar will be brought into active use; and, if so, when?

Mr. Cooper: There is no intention at present of re-opening Port Edgar Base.

Mr. Mathers: When the right hon. Gentleman was in Scotland, did he see this base, and does he not think it is rather regrettable that property of this value should remain unused?

Mr. Cooper: I did not visit the base, but it was the considered opinion of those on the spot that there was no case for reopening it at present.

DOCKYARD SCHOOLS.

Captain Plugge: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty the number of individuals who have received training in the naval dockyard schools during each of the past five years; and how many of these have since taken up service in His Majesty's naval establishments and are still employed therein?

Mr. Cooper: The numbers of boys who attended the dockyard schools at home in 1933 was 1,001; since then the following numbers have been entered each year:


1934
…
…
…
264


1935
…
…
…
333


1936
…
…
…
592


1937
…
…
…
766


giving a total of 2,956 who have attended the schools during the past five years. Of these, 2,683 are still employed in the dockyards.

Captain Plugge: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that at present a considerable proportion of those who are permitted to become pupils at the naval dockyard schools leave them to take up careers in private industry and employment other than in His Majesty's


naval establishments; whether these schools are intended primarily to provide a training for those proposing to take up careers in His Majesty's naval establishments; and whether, in view of the cost of the training, he will see whether it is possible, by making careers in the dockyards more attractive, to retain more of the trainees for the benefit of these yards and for the increase of their efficiency?

Mr. Cooper: As regards the first part of the question, I should like to refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the figures which I have just given. Of those who have left dockyard service, a large number have entered other branches of the Civil Service or the Royal Navy. The answer to the second part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the third part, the prospects for ex-dockyard apprentices are now much better than they have been at any time since the War. By the end of this month the wages of adult workmen will have increased by 7s. a week since 1st January, 1935; about four times as many workmen are being transferred annually to the Established List as in 1935, and the number of higher posts of all kinds open to workmen has greatly increased.

HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "CALEDONIA."

Mr. McLean Watson: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is satisfied with the swimming and gymnastic arrangements on board His Majesty's Ship "Caledonia" at Rosyth; and whether, in deciding upon permanent buildings on shore, he will consider giving preference to an adequate swimming pool and a gymnasium?

Mr. Cooper: Provision of a swimming bath on shore has been approved, and the question of the gymnasium is now under consideration.

Mr. Ralph Beaumont: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what decision has been arrived at on the question of giving assistance towards the extra travelling expenses which will be incurred by artificer apprentices who are being transferred from the mechanical training establishment at Chatham to His Majesty's ship "Caledonia" at Rosyth and whose homes are in- the south of England?

Mr. Cooper: I am glad to be able to inform my hon. Friend that the Admiralty have decided to give assistance Of the kind he mentions to those artificer apprentices who entered from the April examination in 1936 with the prospect of being trained at Chatham, but were subsequently transferred to the new training establishment at Rosyth. When these apprentices go on long leave, the Admiralty will make up the difference between the cost of travelling from Chatham and that of travelling from Rosyth.

Mr. Kirkwood: I hope that the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence will pay attention to these two replies that have been given here to-day regarding the conditions of artificers and apprentices in the Royal dockyards, and the increase of 7s. a week. I will take the matter up with the right hon. Gentleman later on.

DOCKYARD MEN (TERRITORIAL ARMY).

Mr. R. Beaumont: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether men in the Royal dockyards who are members of the Territorial Army are granted 'leave with pay when going on courses of instruction; and, if not, whether he will consider extending in this direction the recent concession with regard to leave with pay during annual camp?

Mr. Cooper: I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of the instructions issued this year with regard to the conditions of enlistment of civil servants in the Territorial, Auxiliary and Reserve Forces; from these he will observe that dockyard men who are members of the Territorial Army are now entitled, provided they fulfil the necessary conditions, to a fortnight's special leave with pay in addition to their ordinary leave. Such special leave would normally be taken for the purpose of annual training in camp; but the Admiralty would not object to its being utilised in whole or in part on courses of instruction.

DOCKYARD SURGERY ASSISTANTS' WAGES.

Mr. R. Beaumont: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has considered the representations made to him with regard to the wages of surgery assistants in the Royal Dockyards; and what decision he has arrived at regarding the matter?

Mr. Cooper: The Board have been unable to accede to the claim for an increase in the wages of surgery assistants and the question of referring this claim to arbitration by the Industrial Court is under consideration.

MALTA (WORKERS' UNION).

Colonel Wedgwood: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what action he proposes to take on the subject matter of the memorandum from the Dockyard and Imperial Workers' Union presented to him in Malta?

Mr. Cooper: This memorandum is now under consideration, and a reply will be sent shortly. I am not at present in a position to make a statement.

Colonel Wedgwood: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into account the very great rise in the cost of living which has taken place in Malta since these rates were fixed, and also the comparative wages in this country?

Mr. Cooper: Yes, Sir; that will be taken into account.

Oral Answers to Questions — ADMIRALTY (MR. R. E. BOUCHER, RESIGNATION).

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty under what circumstances the appointment of Mr. R. E. Boucher, in the Secretary's department, has been terminated?

Mr. Cooper: Mr. R. E. Boucher resigned from the service in April last, for private reasons.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: May I ask if those private reasons were solely connected with this gentleman's ability, or whether they had anything to do with his conduct?

Mr. Cooper: They had nothing whatever to do with his ability, and the Admiralty regret that he decided to leave the service.

Oral Answers to Questions — OCEAN ISLAND (PHOSPHATE CONCESSION).

Mr. Ammon: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will order an impartial investigation into the Ocean Island phosphate concession, whereby the natives were deprived of a large property worth millions of pounds

for a rental of £50 per annum for six years?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The concession to which the hon. Member presumably refers was granted in 1901. Its provisions have long since been revised; and therefore I can see no sufficient ground for an inquiry. If the hon. Member will refer to the answer given on 7th July last to the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild), he will see that considerable sums for the benefit of the natives are now being paid in return for the phosphate concession.

Mr. Ammon: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the conditions were amended in 1928, and does he seek to justify amendment for the future as justice to those who have been wronged in preceding years?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: There was a revision in 1928, another in 1933–34 and another in 1935. I clearly cannot go into what happened in 1901.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA.

NATIVE LABOUR.

Mr. Ammon: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that a Bill has been introduced into Kenya Colony providing for a system of penal sanctions for servants and proposing that fines and, in some cases, imprisonment will be inflicted upon employés for breaches of their civil agreements; that the penalties proposed include a fine equal to one-half the monthly wages or, alternatively, one month's imprisonment; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The Bill to which the hon. Member refers is mainly a consolidation of the existing law with some amendments. The provisions relating to penal sanctions in connection with labour contracts are substantially the same as those already in existence, though the penalties have been reduced and in some cases provision is made for the imposition of a fine where previously there had been no alternative to imprisonment. The Bill has been under consideration for a long time, and I see no reason to delay its enactment, since it incorporates several amendments which experience has shown to be desirable.

Mr. Ammon: Is the Minister not aware that it actually does make arrangements for what is practically a system of slavery for the natives and that there is no escape unless they perform a certain number of days per year?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I must repudiate that. It is really not in accord with the facts. As I said, this Bill merely consolidates old legislation with some mitigation in favour of the natives.

Mr. Ammon: As the right hon. Gentleman says, it is consolidation, but it also introduces a factor that has never been there before, namely, the right to demand of these people a certain number of days per year, in default of which they either go to prison or receive a heavy fine.

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Under the system of contract which has obtained in the past so many days of service have been required in the year of squatters on European land. It is a very old-established principle and no new principle has been introduced. There is no new thing in this Bill at all.

Mr. Creech Jones: Is it not a fact that this Bill actually increases the number of days of compulsory labour from 180 to 270, and is it not time that this method of penal sanctions should be abolished?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Certainly, as the hon. Gentleman knows, there have been difficulties in the Colonies, and attempts have been made from time to time to deal systematically with the problem.

Mr. Broad: Was there anything worse under the Germans in Tanganyika?

ABYSSINIAN REFUGEES.

Mr. Graham White: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give the House any information with regard to the numbers and conditions of refugees from Abyssinia in Kenya?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As my reply is long, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Following is the reply:
It is difficult to give precise figures, but according to my most recent information there are now in Kenya about 6,000 Abyssinian refugees, including many

women and children. These have entered the Colony at various times and in varying numbers, but the main influx took place between the latter part of June and the beginning of August this year, when several parties varying from a few score up to about 2,000 in number crossed the frontier at intervals of a week or so. The majority had travelled long distances and had suffered very severe hardships. Many were sick and there were 155 cases of smallpox. Other diseases were also prevalent, though I am glad to say that fatal cases are said to be very few. The parts of Kenya into which they had penetrated are remote, arid and devoid of communications. Even water supplies are scanty and occur only at isolated places separated by considerable distances. It therefore became immediately necessary to improvise arrangements for supplying them with food, water, and medical attention, for their segregation (in their own interests) from the native population of the Colony, and for their transfer to an area where it was possible to maintain life. Supplies of vaccine were despatched by aeroplane from Nairobi, vaccination was carried out and other assistance rendered by all the medical staff available. A camp was established at Isiolo, which is over 200 miles from the frontier. This involved a 350-mile journey for some of the refugees, but such motor transport as was available was fully utilised for the transport of the necessities of life and for the conveyance of those who were too ill or exhausted to walk across the desert country.
This sudden advent of large numbers of refugees presented a grave problem to the Kenya administrative, police, military, and medical authorities, and I cannot speak too highly of the splendid work which they have performed under conditions of great stress in providing the refugees with supplies and supervising their health. With reference to a report which appeared in the Press a few days ago, there is no foundation whatever for the suggestion that the Government of Kenya took any action to invite these refugees to the Colony, though of course, when presented with the problem, they took immediate steps to deal with with it in accordance with the dictates of humanity. I may mention that owing to the stiuation of the camp at Isiolo, the refugees concentrated there are not in a


position to engage in any anti-Italian activities, even if they wished to do so. I cannot say what the future of the refugees will be. They cannot be accommodated in Kenya, where it would be impossible for them to maintain themselves

EUROPEAN HIGHLANDS.

Mr. Lunn: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the instructions to the committee which has been set up in Kenya Colony on the demarcation of the so-called White Highlands include, in view of the desire of some owners to sell to Indians, a recommendation that land may be offered for sale or lease to Indians as well as to Europeans?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I am not aware that any such committee has been appointed; and the remaining parts of the question do not, therefore, arise.

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether an Order in Council will be made in respect to the European Highlands in Kenya; if so, when, and what proposals will be embodied in it; and will he make a statement on his policy in regard to the whole matter of land tenure and ownership?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Yes, Sir, I propose to submit an Order for the approval of HIE; Majesty in Council at an early date after I have received the observations of the Governor of Kenya to whom the matter has been referred. In brief, it is proposed that the Order shall contain a definition of the Highlands and that it shall provide for the establishment of a board to advise the Governor in matters relating to the disposal of land within the defined Highlands area. As regards the last part of the question, the policy of Government is summarised in their conclusions on the Kenya Land Commission Report as stated in Command Paper No. 4580 of 1934, to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. Creech Jones: When this Order is made, will it include racial discrimination in so far as the Indian inhabitants of Kenya are concerned; will it involve administrative discrimination if not legal discrimination; and, further, will it mean that the policy of the Government will be the complete exclusion from the European Highlands of all those natives who have an ancestral claim in the land?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I should like the hon. Member to put down all those very difficult questions. I cannot possibly answer them now.

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.

Mr. Banfield: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the purpose of the reduction in the number of official members in the Kenya Executive Council; and why, if an official majority is retained in the Legislative Council, it is not retained in the Executive Council also?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I have approved the reduction of the Executive Council in Kenya in order to make that body more convenient in working and more useful as a means for confidential association with unofficial opinion. An Executive Council does not work by votes or divisions, and the Governor is not bound to accept the advice of a majority. I may, however, point out that, including the Governor, there will actually be a majority of officials in the Council as revised.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL EMPIRE (MUNICIPAL COATS OF ARMS).

Major Procter: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the procedure under which capitals and other large towns in the Colonial Empire are permitted to bear municipal coats of arms; and what steps are taken to assist them in this matter?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Applications by capitals and other large towns in the Colonial Empire for the grant of coats of arms are made direct to His Majesty's College of Arms, and the grant is made by Garter Principal King of Arms, under authority delegated to him under Letters Patent. No request for assistance in this connection appears to have been received in the Colonial Office.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER AND SIGNOR MUSSOLINI (CORRESPONDENCE).

Sir P. Harris: asked the Prime Minister whether he will publish as a White Paper the correspondence between him and Signor Mussolini?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): No, Sir. This correspondence was personal, but I have no objection to telling


the House the purport of it. At the end of July last the Italian Ambassador brought me a message from Signor Mussolini of a friendly character. I took advantage of the opportunity to send Signor Mussolini a personal letter expressing my regret that relations between Great Britain and Italy were still far from that old feeling of mutual confidence and affection which lasted for so many years. I went on to state my belief that those old feelings could be restored if we could clear away certain misunderstandings and unfounded suspicions, and I declared the readiness of His Majesty's Government at any time to enter upon conversations with that object. I was glad to receive from Signor Mussolini immediately a reply in which he expressed his own sincere wish to restore good relations between our two countries and his agreement with the suggestion that conversations should be entered upon in order to ensure the desired understanding between the two countries.

Mr. Shinwell: Does the right hon. Gentleman observe that these friendly references have not been transferred to the Italian Press, nor do they appear in articles alleged to be written by Signor Mussolini himself?

Mr. J. J. Davidson: Is the Prime Minister satisfied that these letters have had any good effect with regard to the relations between this country and Italy?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Leach: Could these two letters really and truthfully be described as love letters?

Oral Answers to Questions — DEFENCE.

FOOD SUPPLY.

Mr. V. Adams: asked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence whether he is aware that the supply of essential foodstuffs available on this Island does not exceed the volume requisite for a few weeks; and whether he proposes to repair this deficiency by a large-scale system of storage?

The Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence (Sir Thomas Inskip): I cannot accept my hon. Friend's estimate that the quantity of essential foodstuffs available in this country does not exceed the

volume requisite for a few weeks. As I stated in the Debate on 27th July, the question of storage, including the cost of any plan, has required consideration as part of the general scheme of defence and in relation to other requirements and their cost. I am not able at present to add to this statement.

Mr. Adams: Is it not true of wheat, that there is only about 13 weeks' supply in the country, and is not this one of the most vital aspects of Defence?

Sir T. Inskip: No, Sir, that is not the case.

Mr. Adams: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what supply of wheat is, on the average, kept in the country?

Sir T. Inskip: The hon. Gentleman asked me a question as to the supply of essential foodstuffs now available in this Island, and I have given him the answer.

Mr. Davidson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the past year pastoral or crop producing in Scotland has decreased?

Sir Arthur Salter: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that a great deal of time has elapsed since the establishment of the Food (Defence Plans) Department, and that it is high time that a decision should be arrived at on the main principle of this vitally urgent problem?

Sir T. Inskip: I am well aware of the importance and attraction of a food storage policy, but when we are spending enormous sums to make the Defence of this country such as to secure to us our safety, we have to consider the whole cost of every scheme in the general plan of Defence as a whole.

Mr. Sandys: In view of the importance of this matter, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of making an early statement as to what the Government's policy is towards food supplies and food storage in relation to Defence?

Mr. Lyons: Has a decision yet been arrived at in connection with the storage of wheat in this country in elevators?

Sir T. Inskip: The Government undoubtedly will make a statement as soon


as an answer to this and a number of connected questions can be announced in the House.

Mr. G. Griffiths: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are thousands of old age pensioners who have not a half-day's supply?

AGENCY AND PRIVATE FACTORIES (FINANCIAL AID).

Mr. George Griffiths: asked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, the number and cost of the agency factories and of additions to the existing plant of private manufacturers financed by the Government, under the Defence Programme, in Great Britain and in each of the main groups of special areas, distinguishing between Tyneside and Durham?

Sir T. Inskip: The number of agency factories which have been financed by the Government in Great Britain under the Defence Programme is 14, and the cost of these has amounted to £8,368,000. Of these, two, of which the cost has been £2,200,000, are situated in Special Areas. As regards additions to the existing plant of private manufacturers which have been financed by the Government, the total amount so expended in Great Britain has been £8,162,552 and in the Special Areas £3,962,250. It is regretted that figures for particular Special Areas cannot be given without an undue amount of labour.

Mr. Griffiths: Is this money given to the private manufacturer, or is it a loan? If it is given, is it given without a means test?

Sir T. Inskip: This question was discussed in the Select Committee on Estimates last March. These sums are not given to contractors, but arrangements are made to suit the special circumstances of each case.

Mr. Kirkwood: Will the right hon. Gentleman see to it that the individuals who have control of that £8,000,000 give as good conditions to their workpeople as the Government give to their employés in the Royal dockyards? On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Surely my Supplementary is relevant to the original question and demands an answer?

Sir T. Inskip: I respectfully suggest to the hon. Member that it is a question

which he might address to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour.

Miss Ward: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how much of that actual sum has been expended in the Special Areas? If the whole of it has not been spent in the Special Areas, can he say how much has been spent in sub-contract work in or outside the Special Areas?

Sir T. Inskip: That is another question, and I very much doubt whether I could give an answer even if the hon. Lady put it down on the Order Paper.

ORDERS (SPECIAL AREAS).

Mr. Whiteley: asked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence the value of the orders placed by the Defence Departments in each of the past few years in Great Britain in the scheduled areas, and in each of the main groups of Special Areas, distinguishing between Tyneside and Durham?

Sir T. Inskip: The value of orders placed by the Defence Departments in Great Britain during the financial year 1936–37 was £195,666,900 and for the first six months of 1937–38 was £92,324,000. The values of orders placed during the corresponding periods in the Special and Distressed Areas were £52,840,000 and £29,048,400 respectively. I regret that it is not possible to give detailed figures for the orders placed in particular areas without an undue amount of labour.

Miss Ward: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the interests of the Special Areas it is of the utmost importance that we should know how much of that money is expended in the Special Areas, and will he consider asking the firms to whom the contracts have been allocated how much money has been spent in the Special Areas?

Sir T. Inskip: I am afraid that it would be quite impossible to expect the contractors all over the Kingdom to furnish reports as to the value of the subcontracts which they have made.

Oral Answers to Questions — MAURITIUS (COMMISSION'S REPORT).

Mr. Paling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Commission of inquiry into the situation in


Mauritius has presented its report; if not, when the report is likely to be completed; and under what terms of reference the Commission has been working?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The Commission has not yet presented its report, but it may be expected to do so shortly. It was appointed on 18th August
to make a diligent and full inquiry into the causes of the present unrest on sugar estates
and to make recommendations. The Commission was asked to report within three months of the date of appointment.

Oral Answers to Questions — UGANDA AND TANGANYIKA (INCOME TAX).

Mr. McEntee: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in consequence of the introduction of income tax into Kenya, he proposes to introduce it also into Uganda and Tanganyika?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I have invited the Governments of both territories to consider favourably and report to me on the introduction of income tax.

Mr. McEntee: If the Income Tax is introduced will it apply to the natives?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I cannot imagine that there will be racial discrimination.

Oral Answers to Questions — EAST AFRICA.

HIGHER EDUCATION.

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any steps are yet under contemplation to carry out the recommendations of the Commission on Higher Education in East Africa?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The report of the Commission will be considered by the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies and by the Governments of the East African Dependencies. I cannot, therefore, make any definite announcement at this stage, but I am hopeful that the Commission's main recommendations will prove acceptable.

EROSION.

Mr. McEntee: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether His Majesty's Government have considered

the report of Sir Frank Stockdale on soil erosion in East Africa; and what steps he proposes to take to give effect to the proposals on anti-erosion measures and reconditioning of the reserves in Kenya and on the development of improved methods of agriculture and of animal husbandry?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Yes, Sir. The attention of the Governments of all the East African Dependencies has been drawn to Sir Frank Stockdale's report. As regards the second part of the question, the Government of Kenya is establishing a special Soil Conservation Service to deal with the problem. It will be the duty of the officers so employed to prepare the necessary surveys and schemes for the whole colony. As a beginning, a comprehensive scheme has been prepared for reconditioning 100,000 acres in the Machakos Native Reserve as an experimental and demonstration measure, and the Government of Kenya has submitted an application for financial assistance from the Colonial Development Fund to enable this work to he carried out. The Government has also applied for a loan on behalf of the local native council for that area, to enable other reconditioning measures to be taken in the rest of Machakos Reserve.

Mr. McEntee: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether a decision has been reached, as to whether the grant and loans are to be given to the Government, and whether the same conditions are to be applied in Tanganyika and in Kenya?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Kenya has led the way in making experiments which have been most successful. We have learned a very great deal from the experiments. Tanganyika requires different treatment because of the different conditions.

Mr. McEntee: Have the Government actually agreed to make a loan and grant?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: That is a question which must come before the Colonial Development Fund, a committee which was set up by the Government to consider this matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH GUIANA.

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to recent industrial disputes in British Guiana; what


steps are being taken to improve working conditions; and whether he proposes that the inhabitants should now be given some measure of real responsibility in the government of the Colony?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I am not aware of any recent industrial disputes in British Guiana apart from a small strike of seamen in September last, which has been settled satisfactorily. As regards the second part of the question, I have recently approved the setting up of a labour inspectorate whose duties will include the supervision of conditions of employment in the Colony. As regards the last part of the question, no proposals have been made to me for the amendment of the Constitution, but the question was considered by my predecessor in 1932 as the result of representations made by the elected members of the Council, and I would invite the hon. Member's attention to the reply returned by my predecessor to a question in the House on Wednesday, 16th November, 1932, of which I am sending him a copy. I am in entire agreement with the decision referred to in that reply that, at any rate as long as the Colony is in receipt of a grant from the Imperial Exchequer, His Majesty's Government must continue to exercise effective financial control.

Oral Answers to Questions — LONDON SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL STUDIES.

Mr. Ridley: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the probability that the department of African languages in the London School of Oriental Studies will be obliged to close down owing to the cessation of an annual grant of £3,000 from the Rockefeller Trust, His Majesty's Government will make a grant out of public funds to enable the scientific study of African languages to continue in the British Empire?

Mr. Ormsby-Core: I am at present considering the question of inviting the Governments of the African dependencies to make financial contributions for the maintenance of the Department of Languages and Culture of Africa in the School of Oriental Studies. I would also point out that the School is already in receipt of substantial financial assistance from the Imperial Exchequer through the Treasury block grant payable to the University of

London on the recommendation of the University Grants Committee.

Mr. Ridley: Having regard to our responsibilities in native Africa and to the very inconsiderable amount of money involved in this question will the right hon. Gentleman make quite certain that the opportunity for learning native languages in the London School is not terminated for financial reasons?

Mr. Ormsby-Core: I cannot do that. I cannot make arrangements in this particular school in London for the necessary teaching of African languages to those who are going out to administer in tropical Africa. In the main they have to learn the bulk of the native languages in the country.

Oral Answers to Questions — MUI-TSAI.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he proposes to promote legislation for Hong Kong and Malaya whereby all transferred children must be registered?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: In Malaya the Government of the Straits Settlements has decided to adopt in principle the recommendations of the Minority Report of the recent Mui-Tsai Commission. I hope that the Governments of the Malay States will reach a similar decision. In Hong Kong the problem in general presents special difficulties of effective control owing to the free movement of the Chinese population between the Colony and Chinese territory, particularly at this time with many thousands of refugees. The Colonial Government, however, announced its willingness to give effect to the proposals of the majority report, but before reaching any final decision, I shall await an appreciation of the situation from the new Governor with whom I discussed the problem before he sailed from this country.

Mr. Lunn: Is it not time that we abolished this system of child slavery in the British Empire?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: If I remember, when the hon. Member was in office several things were done in this matter, and, as he knows, the problem, particularly in Hong Kong, is very difficult, where you have a custom which is ingrained


in Chinese customs, and where you have hundreds and thousands of Chinese refugees coming in owing to the war position.

Mr. Lunn: Is that any reason why we should continue mui-tsai?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: How can you prevent it under the conditions which obtain, when there are thousands of mui-tsai in China, some of them getting into Hong Kong?

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES (LABOUR CONDITIONS).

Mr. Paling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the widespread labour unrest in the West Indies and with a view to avoiding the outbreak of disturbances such as those which recently occurred in Trinidad, he will consider the appointment of a commission to review labour conditions throughout the West Indies or, in the alternative, the establishment of labour departments in each of the Colonies concerned?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I have recently communicated with all Colonial Governors asking them to review the arrangements for the supervision of labour conditions which obtain in the territories under their administration. In my despatch, a copy of which I am having placed in the Library of the House, I have emphasised the desirability of setting up adequate Government machinery for this purpose where it does not already exist, and I have set out what I consider should be the main duties and responsibilities of the officers of the Colonial Administrations who are entrusted with the supervision of labour conditions. In certain of the West Indian Colonies, labour departments or inspectorates have now been set up.

Mr. Paling: Does that mean that something in the nature of a labour department is actually to be set up?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Yes, Sir.

Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the position in Trinidad at the moment?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I am afraid it is unsatisfactory.

Mr. Creech Jones: Is it proposed to apply this principle to the African Colonies?

Mr. Ormsby-Gore: Certainly to some of them. Major Orde Brown is now on his way to Northern Rhodesia to go into the formation of labour departments and similar action is being taken elsewhere.

Oral Answers to Questions — BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS.

CIVIL AVIATION.

Mr. Perkins: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to Civil Aviation, and move a Resolution.

TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Mr. Simpson: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to the Reorganisation of the Transport Industry, and move a Resolution.

PENSIONS.

Mr. Sexton: I beg to give notice that, on this day fortnight, I shall call attention to the question of Pensions, and move a Resolution.

BILLS PRESENTED.

HOUSING (AGRICULTURAL POPULATION) (SCOTLAND) BILL,

"to authorise the giving of financial assistance towards the expenses incurred by local authorities being county councils in providing housing accommodation for the agricultural population; to promote the provision of new housing accommodation to replace accommodation which is occupied by members of the agricultural population and is unfit for human habitation or overcrowded; to amend the provisions of the Housing (Scotland) Acts, 1925 to 1935, relating to charging orders, insanitary dwelling-houses, the recovery of expenses by instalments, the provision of water closets, and the making of byelaws as to accommodation for seasonal workers; to amend the provisions of section one hundred and twenty-five of the Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1897; to authorise the making of byelaws with respect to premises used for the accommodation of agricultural workers; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid," presented by Mr. Elliot; supported by the Lord Advocate, the


Solicitor-General for Scotland, and Mr. Wedderburn; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 37.]

SEA FISH INDUSTRY BILL,

"to make provision for the better organisation of the white fish industry; to amend the Sea-Fishing Industry Act, 1933, the Whaling Industry (Regulation) Act, 1934, Part IV of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, and other enactments relating to sea fisheries; and to make provision for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid," presented by Mr. W. S. Morrison; supported by Sir Samuel Hoare, Mr. Elliot, Mr. Stanley, Lieut-Colonel Colville, and Mr. Ramsbotham: to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 38.]

LAND DRAINAGE.

3.49 p.m.

Mr. Quibell: I beg to move,
That, in the opinion of this House, experience has shown that the Land Drainage Acts cannot be effectively administered without further State aid, and that amending legislation is urgently required to remove the existing inequalities in the incidence of rating.
I consider myself very fortunate in being privileged to-day to bring forward a Motion on a subject which affects Members from all parts of the country. It is a question which touches intimately and more acutely hon. Members opposite than those on this side of the House. I expect that I shall be met with the old cry which I have heard for some time, that the Land Drainage Act was passed by a Labour Government when in office in 1930. That is perfectly true, but it is also true that on the Committee which considered the Bill representatives of the Government were at that time in a minority. That Bill was framed largely as a result of the Report of a Royal Commission. On the first day of the Committee proceedings on the Bill, the Minister in charge said that he hoped the Bill was a non-party measure and he proposed to treat it in that sense.
For many years, the whole question of land drainage had been in urgent need of reform. The matter was inquired into by a Royal Commission, and the 1930 Bill, which finally became an Act, was largely based upon the Royal Commission's findings and Report. The need for action and unification was urgent and important in the national interest. The damage caused to some crops on account of defective drainage, and in some cases no drainage at all, land becoming waterlogged and going out of cultivation, were all matters that must concern every hon. Member who had at heart the interests of agriculture. For nearly a generation the subject had been shelved by successive Governments, until in 1930 a Government which, although it was a minority Government, possessed a good deal more courage than many of its predecessors, considered that the subject could no longer be left to chance, particularly in view of the decline in employment in rural areas, the ever-increasing number of unemployed, and the fact that land was constantly going out of cultivation. Therefore, it was considered

necessary that Parliament should deal with the whole subject in a comprehensive manner and create the necessary machinery of administration and finance towards that desirable end.
That Bill completely changed the previous practice of levying a drainage rate. It had been the custom to levy rates on the basis of acreage, a system which, in the main, worked fairly well in some districts, but not so well in others, as the income was insufficient to enable the older authorities to carry out works of an essential and expensive character to any great extent. Improvements have become necessary, particularly in the main rivers, the more so because of the great development of water-bound roads and the generally efficient drainage of towns, so that storm water enters into the main rivers much more quickly than was formerly the case. I think the general principle accepted by hon. Members representing cities and towns is that the towns should have the responsibility of contributing to the main catchment boards because of the facts which I have just stated. Catchment boards whose task was to deal with the problem of main rivers were set up, and I think that in general they are functioning very well. I trust that further schemes for improving main rivers are receiving their earnest consideration.
I think the incidence of rating for these boards is just, and the larger cities and towns are only paying their fair share of the expense, which, as time goes on, may be less rather than more, since large capital expenditure will in many cases not need to be repeated. An important feature of the 1930 Act was the creation of internal drainage boards charged with a new responsibility and duty, but I am afraid that many of those boards were severely handicapped owing to inequalities of income, and consequently have not been able to carry out many of the schemes that they had in mind for improving the internal drainage system. Where they have carried out such schemes, the burden has in some cases been an almost intolerable one, and my submission is that the burden has not been met, as it should have been, by the Ministry making grants of amounts sufficient to enable the boards to carry out their duties under the Act.

Mr. Turton: Will the hon. Member be good enough to inform me under what


Section of the 1930 Act the Minister has power to give any grants to an internal drainage board?

Mr. Quibell: I will deal with that matter before I finish my remarks. First, the Minister has not exercised his powers under the Act to make bigger grants of money to poor areas. I will tell the hon. Member where some of the grants have been made, and if they have not been made under powers given in the Act, then I hope attention will be drawn to the matter by the appropriate authority when we are considering the Minister's financial responsibility to this House and to the Committee. Secondly, under Section 4, the Minister has power to induce internal drainage boards so to alter and extend their boundaries that the burden shall be more fairly distributed and borne. The Minister has not thought fit to exercise that power or to suggest that measure of readjustment to internal drainage boards, despite the fact that his attention has frequently been drawn to the matter.
I will give to the House a quotation which emphasises the gross injustice as between one ratepayer and another. It is from a newspaper advertisement announcing the levying of a drainage rate in the Isle of Axholme. We find that in sub-district A there is an occupier's rate of 4s. 9d. in the £, and an owner's rate of one penny in the £; in sub-district B there is an occupier's rate of 3s. 2d. in the £, and an owner's rate of one penny in the £ and in sub-district C, an occupier's rate of 1s. 7d. in the £ and an owner's rate of one penny in the £. So it is that in the same area, and almost in the same parish, three or four petty authorities have different systems of rating. Many of the people are smallholders and overhead charges weigh very heavily upon them. Hon. Members can see how much new work is being done under the Act when they bear in mind that the owner's costs are one penny, because the charge upon him is for new works under the Act; but the maintenance of the work falls upon the small people, even upon cottage labourers in the areas that I have mentioned. It is no use the Minister saying that he knows nothing about the weakness of those sections of the Act. It is nothing less than a scandal that agricultural labourers should have to pay this amount.
The Minister knows that it is now nearly three years ago that I took this matter up in correspondence with the Ministry. Moreover, he knows that there have been scores of summonses, in some cases distress warrants, against poor labourers who have not derived the slightest benefit from the Act. I consider it is nothing but a scandal. Indeed it is a tremendous disappointment to me that anyone should attempt to move an Amendment to what I consider to be a reasonable, common-sense desire on our part. I want to help the Minister to meet what is admitted on all hands, even by my friends the agriculturists on the other side, to be the urgent need of amending the law in order that we may do justice to these poor people. I think the Minister could have taken certain action that would have met some of the shortcomings in the district I have mentioned. Section 4, paragraph (b), provides that:
Every catchment board shall, within a further period expiring on such later date as may be appointed by the Minister for the purposes of this provision, either generally or in relation to a particular catchment board, prepare and submit to him for confirmation a further scheme or further schemes making provision for the following matters:—
This is where the first and most important point comes in:
(i) The alteration of the boundaries of any internal drainage district.
Let me quote a case in point. I am not certain whether I drew the present Minister's attention to it, but at any rate the attention of the permanent officials of the Department was drawn to it. I believe that I interviewed the present Minister about it. In my division in the village of Brigg itself, there is the river and what is known as the Ancholme, and a little land between those two rivers right in the midst of the urban district of Brigg. That little area is charged with drainage rates. This is an illustration: There is the river running along, as it were, across the Floor of this House. At this side of it the men are paying a heavy drainage rate, but on the other side not one halfpenny is paid as drainage rate. The greater part of the urban district of Brigg is on the other side, the smaller part on this side, and the little householders, and indeed an old age pensioner, have to pay.
I have brought with me particulars of dozens of summonses in cases where proceedings have been taken by the drainage officials, not because they wanted to


take proceedings but because the law compelled them to do so. They have done their duty sympathetically, and I know of officials who do consider the small man. But so far as that area is concerned their ability to re-survey the area and submit an amended scheme so as to spread the burden and bring in wider areas, does not exist; they have been incapable of doing it because it is a small authority and the engineer and clerk are unable to find the money to carry out a survey. Therefore, for six or seven years these people have been penalised. In one case I know that an old age pensioner with l0s. a week has been called upon under the Act to pay a drainage rate. I know that it was never the intention of hon. Members opposite, who sat with me on that Committee, that an old age pensioner should pay a drainage rate to improve the agricultural land of the country. We never intended that it should be a burden on the agricultural labourer.

Mr. Henry Haslam: Why did you put it in the Bill then?

Mr. Quibell: I shall tell the hon. Member before I sit down. He need not worry about that. I want to read now what I consider to be a pathetic letter from a man whom, since this drainage business became a burden to him, I have learned to think a good deal about and to respect as one of Nature's gentlemen. This man wrote to me:
I should like to place the facts of my own case before you for your attention. I am 74 years of age, and my whole life has been a hard struggle to get going. Even now I rise at four o'clock every morning and work right through the day until six and sometimes eight to keep my little dairy farm business going. A teetotaller and non-smoker all my life. I have been thrifty and worked hard since I was seven. This has enabled me to acquire a bit of land, 17 acres. The Land Drainage Act demanded that I should pay 9s. 2d. per acre upon this as against 2s. 7d. per acre under the old Act. My latest rate amounts to £7 15s. 6d. and there has been no drainage done, none what-ever.
Hon. Members opposite will understand that man's feelings, as I do. Nearly 100 letters I have received, and the reason is that the late Member for the Division told them that it was particularly a responsibility of mine. Of course my correspondents were not slow to let me know when they thought that I was going slow. Here is another letter:

I pay £5 4s. yearly for the bit of ground around and upon which my caravan stands, so that I think with this and the ordinary rates I have quite enough to pay without 13s. additional per year for drainage.
So one could go on. I am not the only Member who has received such letters. I know that hon. Members opposite must have had the same experience. When Clause 4 was being discussed I remember the then Minister of Agriculture saying:
Circumstances may arise from time to time in which it may easily be necessary or desirable that there should be adjustments between the different drainage areas. Owing to the development of a scheme. It may be agreed on all sides that the boundaries should be altered, and we cannot fix for all time under the Bill contributions which must necessarily be subject to review and variation by agreement amongst the authorities themselves in the course of time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Standing Committee C), 8th July, 1930; Col. 1632.]
The Minister does not avail himself of this very simple proposal, and that is my criticism of him. If carried out the proposal would very materially help to ease the burden of thousands of poor people who have had proceedings taken against them for recovery of rates. They are law-abiding citizens who feel that they are being dealt with unfairly. Here I would like to make a suggestion to the Minister, because while it is the duty of an Opposition perhaps to criticise and to take Parliamentary advantage of their opponents, yet there are times when we on this side are entitled to make our contributions to the solution of a difficulty. In the case of Brigg I say that power should be taken in any future Measure where an internal drainage board forms only a very small part of an urban area, so that the drainage authorities have the right to precept upon the whole of the urban district which benefits, instead of precepting on such a very small portion as I have illustrated.
I commend to the Minister the consideration of that proposal. I myself was sufficiently interested in this solution, because I believe it to be a practical one, that, I even went to interview the Brigg Urban District Council and the drainage authorities because of the very great difficulty we were experiencing there. I commend that suggestion to the Minister for dealing with that side of the difficulty. The other suggestion is that far greater areas should be brought in by producing


new maps extending the area levelled. It seems to me that there have not been any levels taken since there was a flood. The authorities had no income with which to do it, and unless the Minister can come to their aid I am afraid that so far as new levels of extended areas are concerned we shall have to wait a considerable time. I have another suggestion to make, in order to remedy this grievance still further in areas like the Trent Valley and the Isle of Axholme.
At a meeting I addressed at Boston the question was put to me, "Can you do anything to amend the Land Drainage Act?" I can take any hon. Member who is sufficiently interested to places where there is not the slightest drainage of any kind and where they are paying drainage rate, places where there is not five yards of land outside the houses. Under previous Acts I believe it is the case that any one who has a garden of less than a quarter of an acre attached to a hereditament was exempted, but under this Act the whole of those places come in, and the consequence is that the Act has placed a burden on the backs of poor people in a way that was never intended. I know that we ought to have been wiser but we received assurances from certain quarters in the House that this would not be the effect. "I was a stranger, and ye took me in."
The proposal of the Bill as originally drafted and submitted to the Committee gave the choice of basing the rate either on acreage or annual value. In the minds of some of us in that Committee there was some anxiety as to how annual value would affect the small people, but we were assured frequently that all would be well if only we would be good boys, sit on our side of the Committee, close our eyes, open our mouths and say nothing. We were told that the greatest achievement would be to get the Measure passed and on the Statute Book. I have had my lesson on that score.
Let me refer again to the proceedings in Standing Committee. In discussing the Clauses of the Bill preceding the fatal Clause, which determined the basis of rating, we were frequently asked to leave over particular parts of particular Clauses until we had discussed and decided whether the basis of rating was to be acreage or annual value. A right hon.

Gentleman who was an ornament of the party opposite—and I think that is a correct description—and who at one time was Minister of Agriculture, moved an Amendment in the Committee to base the whole of this burden on annual value. Those hon. Members who were on the Committee will recall that fact. The right hon. Gentleman who was then Member for Bury St. Edmunds came to the Committee and said that after due consideration and taking into account the report of the Royal Commission and other factors, he had come to the conclusion that the proper basis of rating under the Measure was annual value.
Here let me say that we all fell into the trap. The then Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Addison, fell into it beautifully and thanked the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment for doing so because, he said, it cleared a lot of difficulties out of the way. I remember that a Division was forced upon this Clause by the hon. Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson). He was not having any of it. He said that the system of rating on a basis of acreage was straightforward, and that there had been no trouble with it. He said that the charge in his area was very easy to collect and that they never troubled about the small man who had a little allotment. The small man under that system had not to pay any drainage rate. The hon. Member acted on that occasion with the courage which we all know him to possess. If he were not a man of courage, he would not come here day after day, suffering as he is, and stand the strain as well as the youngest of us in this House. I pay him a great compliment for that. On the occasion to which I refer, he forced a Division and some of us were not altogether pleased with him for doing so. But I have always sufficient courage to pay a compliment where it is due, and I say that in my view he was the only man of the Committee who was right on that occasion. It is manifestly wrong to ask an agricultural labourer to pay for the improvement of agricultural land and in some cases for the actual creation of agricultural value in land, while the landlord is allowed to escape, as he is doing now, with a rate of a penny in the £ The then Minister of Agriculture said:
It is perfectly obvious that the number of acres a man has is not a proof in itself of his ability to pay.


We can agree with that. He went on to say:
It may be poor land; it may be good land. It is the value of, shall I say, the benefits received that determines."—OFFICIAL REPORT (Standing Committee C), 15th July, 1930; col. 1849.]
If that was to be the basis, and if the intention was as expressed by the then Minister, then all I can say is that there are hundreds and thousands of people in these lowlands who are being called upon to pay and who receive not the slightest benefit, who have no drainage or sewerage schemes and many of whom have no water supplies. They have not received the slightest benefit unless it can be claimed that by the improvement of agriculture in general, their chances of employment have been increased. I say that as far as this additional provision by the right hon. Gentleman is concerned, it will mean in these internal drainage board areas that rates will be levied on annual values instead of on the usual basis of acreage. In the Standing Committee a very interesting interruption was made by the hon. Member for Horncastle (Mr. Haslam). I see that the hon. Member is in his place. I hope I am going to take him into the Lobby with me this evening, because I am, to some extent, stating a case which I think he would have liked to have stated if he had not been given a lead of a different character. In the Committee he put this point to the Minister:
Then they can continue to levy rates upon the principle of benefit derived."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Standing Committee C), 15th July, 1930; col. 1854.]
The answer of the Minister was "Yes." After that announcement we all felt, particularly hon. Members on this side, that we could vote for the proposal. We thought we were perfectly safe because 1:he principle of the degree of benefit received had been accepted by the Minister in charge of the Bill. The original wording proposed was:
A drainage board may at their option, make a drainage rate as either
(a) an acreage rate, that is to say, a rate assessed on the basis of acreage as regards agricultural hereditaments, but on the basis of annual value as regards other hereditameats.''
The right hon. Gentleman the then Member for Bury St. Edmunds moved to cut out that option and to substitute annual value for acreage in all cases. The effect has been to place upon the small

man a burden which he had never previously carried, and which he should not be called upon to carry now. I do not believe it was ever intended by Parliament that he should bear this charge, and consequently I ask the House to amend the existing provision and to remove this injustice from these poor people. It is an example of a united front—a coalition of the worst type. Another proposed Clause read.
A drainage board shall not be required to enforce payment of any rate made on any hereditament of less than a quarter of an acre.
That shows it never was the intention of Parliament to impose this charge on the poor householder. The inequalities which are indicated in the Motion are numerous. Hundreds of law-abiding citizens have been summoned for non-payment of these rates, not because they are people who habitually run away from their liabilities, but simply because they feel that this is an unfair burden and an unfair charge. They protest against being required to pay a rate to improve the agricultural land of this country while they themselves are receiving no direct benefit whatever. Who are these people? There are smallholders such as the man whose letter I have read; there are agricultural labourers and general labourers. In my town the general labourer who lives on the top of the hill has no payment to make, but the man who lives down below has to meet a heavy drainage rate. They have to pay the catchment rate, then the internal board rate, and on top of that a pumping rate for the cost of pumping the water into the main river. In three ways they are touched in respect of drainage without any benefit coming to them.
I consider this to be a far more important matter than a great many hon. Members appear to have considered it hitherto—otherwise the question would have been raised in a very direct and practical way long before now. As I said before, it affects not only smallholders and agricultural labourers, but small traders as well, and even old age pensioners. An hon. Member opposite gave me the case of a butcher in business in one of these internal drainage board districts who because of his assessment pays more in drainage rate than farmers with big farms in the same area. That instance was given to me by an hon. Member whose word I can take, who still sits


on the benches opposite and who will, I hope, continue to sit there at any rate until the next General Election. In a neighbouring area a small farmer bought his farm. He got rid of one landlord but he finds now that he has another landlord, because his drainage rate is actually in excess of the amount which he paid per acre when he rented his farm. That, of course, is a case where the rate is high, but it is a case where the grant should have been high.
We were promised that grants would be made up to 80 per cent. and in some cases 100 per cent. Fairly rich authorities could carry out these surveys without imposing undue burdens, but it is different with the small authorities, and I say that some of these small authorities should be amalgamated and should receive more State assistance than has hitherto been forthcoming. The present position is, I know, partly due to the economy proposals of the present Government. A great deal of the trouble arises from the fact that the grants have been insufficient to enable the little authorities to carry out the work. Some of them are actually still carrying out the surveys. I, myself, have interviewed three officers of drainage boards since I put this Motion on the Paper, and not one of them had completed the survey. That was because of lack of means.
The officers of the boards are not to blame. They have to carry out the law and they do their duty with every consideration to the poor people. I desire as much as anybody else that schemes should be carried out for the general improvement of the land so that we can make the greatest possible use of it. I know the difficulties experienced by farmers in trying to farm land which at times, often at vital times, is waterlogged. I have no difference with hon. Members opposite as regards the general desire to drain the land and improve its general character. We all desire to see a contented countryside. But we want this grievance removed, and I believe that the Minister can remove it by a small Bill once he has collected the necessary information. Let us, therefore, see to it that this great injustice which has been inflicted upon a deserving and hardworking class of people is removed. Let us see to it that justice and equity as

between man and man shall, in this matter, be the rule of law.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Muff: I beg to second the Motion.
My hon. Friend has put before the House the human side of this problem, and he has done it forcefully but, I suggest, without exaggeration, and we are entitled to ask the Minister to come to the aid of these people, who are undoubtedly suffering from the administration of the internal drainage boards. As a member of the Yorkshire Ouse Catchment Board, I went through several parts of the North and East Ridings to see the work that we were doing, and I found everywhere this sense of injustice at occupiers having to pay rates of 4s. and 5s. in the £ to meet the precepts of the internal drainage board, while in some cases the landowner escaped almost scot-free. The Ministry has been responsible for yet another anomaly. If these occupiers, either large or small, pay these rates, this unjust incidence of taxation, they are at any rate entitled to representation on the catchment hoard, but the Ministry of Agriculture sees to it that they have no representation, but that, on the other hand, the landowner is well represented, and so far as the Yorkshire Ouse Catchment Board is concerned, the Minister himself nominates three landowners in order that they may watch their own interests and incidentally vote, if the Ministry requires them to do so.
I wish, before leaving this aspect of the situation, to suggest to the Minister, notwithstanding his speech on 25th May, when he told, I believe, the conference of the catchment hoards that he might not be able to introduce a Bill in this next Session of Parliament, that he has the chance to remedy a great act of injustice so far as some of the small occupiers who are mulcted in these excessive sums for drainage expenditure are concerned. A few months ago the Minister, with a fanfare of trumpets, rather gave this House to understand that he was coming to the aid of these people by making an increased grant, but he led me and he led even some of the catchment boards up the garden and into thinking that they were going to get something because he was making a grant of 50 per cent. for certain forms of drainage, for on examination it was found that he was really giving them nothing at all.
Then there was the famous letter, of which he admitted that he knew nothing, in which it was stated that the work had to be done during the winter months and that if the ordinary labour was used, that is, the labour usually employed by the catchment boards, these people should not receive the rates of wages laid clown by the Joint Industrial Council, but that in effect they should have their wages reduced, even if the work was close to an urban area, to the starvation level of the agricultural labourers living adjacent. Without political prejudice, a great catchment board wrote to the Ministry on this very important subject. I say "the Ministry," because the Minister knew nothing about the previous letter, and he may not know anything about this one. They wrote to the Ministry pointing out that most of the important schemes could not be carried out in winter at all, but had to be carried out during the dry summer months, and they appealed to the Ministry to allow the schemes to qualify for grant and to agree that the Joint Industrial Council's standard rate of wages should be given. But no; the Ministry again sent a letter refusing to come to their help in order that these schemes should be put in hand at the most suitable time.
In a speech made, I think, on 25th May, or else in the annual report of the Ministry, the Minister stated that 600 internal drainage schemes have been passed for carrying out, and I want to ask him whether those schemes are of great importance, what is the amount of money that is to be expended upon them, and how many men they will employ. We turn with relief from the continual debating of international affairs, not to discuss the internal catchment boards alone, but to look at the whole picture of land drainage throughout England and Wales. I do not want to waterlog the subject with too many figures, but I notice, from the Ministry's own report, that the problem of this House is that there are in the lowlands of England and Wales 3,593,000 acres of land which are called lowlands, and are, therefore, subject to flooding, and we wish to ask the Minister what steps he is taking in order to prevent flooding, either in the Great Ouse or similar areas, the Severn area, or even the Yorkshire Ouse area, because it is only, I believe, two or three months ago

that there was actually flooding in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The Minister, in his report, points with pride to the fact that £750,000 was expended in 1936, but the point is not what amount of money has been spent, but how far the Department has been able to ensure that there shall not be such flooding, say, in the Great Ouse area as there was last year.
I notice that there is on the Paper an Amendment, the usual stereotyped Government Amendment, noting "with satisfaction," and so on. I suggest to the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment that they should change those words to noting "with great self-satisfaction," because that seems to be the keynote of what is usually said on the other side. I suggest that, while there are more than 3,500,000 acres of lowlands in England and Wales subject to being flooded, there are still 900,000 acres which have not yet been touched by any internal catchment board. How much of those 900,000 acres of lowlands untouched are suitable for agricultural land, and how far, if they were immune from being flooded, would they be an asset to the nation? It only a half of those 900,000 acres could be proved to be an asset, I suggest that the smug self-satisfaction of the right hon. Gentleman's Department wants doing away with and that what we should have is a forward policy. To-day, as I have said, only 2,602,000 acres have been touched, and I want to know whether the balance is good agricultural land.
I wonder whether the Minister realises that the Severn Catchment Board Area is the largest catchment area in the country, but that notwithstanding the large area of 239,000 acres for which that hoard is responsible, seven years after the passing of this Act the board has only attempted to tackle 76,000 acres, so I do not think there can be any room for too much self-satisfaction in that regard. I put it to the Minister that the Yorkshire Ouse Catchment Board, notwithstanding the rebuffs which is has received time and again from his Department, responsible as it is for 350,000 acres, is proud, be it said—I say it with a little self-satisfaction myself—that it has attempted, out of its total acreage, to deal with no less than 327,000 acres, according to the figures of the Department itself.
With regard to another small catchment area in which I am closely interested, namely, the River Hull catchment


area, which is very small, with only 60,000 acres, some 46,000 acres have been dealt with, notwithstanding again that the Ministry has made it as difficult as it possibly could for that catchment board to carry on, because while it said to the town of Kingston-upon-Hull, "You raise the money," the Minister has refused to give representation, and we say that where there is taxation there should be adequate and proportional representation. He has refused that with the Hull Catchment Board, and he has refused it with the Yorkshire Ouse Catchment Board. Indeed, he has loaded the Board with his own nominees, so that the county boroughs of the West Riding County Council can be out-voted on every occasion. His predecessor in office cast envious eyes on the £21,000,000 rateable value in the West Riding, and he foisted on to us the carrying out of works in the North and East Ridings to the extent of a quarter of a million of money. The contribution of the East Riding for the next half-year is £285 out of a total expenditure of £32,000, and the contribution of the North Riding is about £600 or £700, while again the West Riding County Council and the great boroughs in the West Riding have to foot most of the bill.
Therefore, we want the Minister to review this situation in the light of the experience of the past seven years, and we say to him, quite frankly, that if there are injustices, unwittingly or wittingly brought about, that is no reason why they should not be abolished, and we on this side of the House would enter upon the discussion of any remedial measures without political prejudice or bias. We suggest to the Minister that he should copy the Ministry of Transport, which has undertaken to make the administration of 4,500 miles of trunk roads a national charge. The trunk rivers of this country should also be made a national charge. I quite agree that to expect the East Riding of Yorkshire to put its house in order when its rateable value is so inadequate is to ask the impossible, and the same applies to the North Riding, but that is no excuse for trying to "pass the buck" and asking some other authority to nurse some of the Minister's agricultural babies. We ask the Minister to see that the incidence of the burden of carrying out

these works in spread out in a fit and proper manner.
We have all heard of the River Don and its overflowing. I went to the area on Friday when the Don was within five inches of flooding as it did a few years ago when 600 houses were involved and great hardship was caused in Bentley and the neighbouring villages. Is the self-complacent Minister going to wait until there is another flood? The trouble in that area has been caused by mining in a rich coalfield, subsidence of land being the cause of the trouble. The Minister agreed to an expenditure of £1,000,000 to remedy the state of affairs there. The great county borough of Doncaster will pay in the next half year as it share £627 2s. 8d., while Leeds, which has nothing to do with it, is to pay £6,635 os. 9d., and Bradford £4,552 1s. 3d. What are the people who have caused this flooding paying? The Minister has nominated two mine-owners on to the Yorkshire Ouse Catchment Board in order that they can vote for the expenditure of money from the West Riding County Council and the great county boroughs. He overloads the voting power against those who really have to foot the bill. We suggest again that that is not cricket. The Minister, speaking on 25th May, said:
Some of you look upon drainage and some of the public look upon drainage as an unnecessary service.
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. We know that it is vital to this country that there should be adequate land drainage. What we object to is his Department mulcting us in an expenditure of money when we have not the power on these boards to control it. Again, on 25th May, the Minister mentioned to the Catchment Board Conference that there should be more co-operation between the catchment boards and water boards, and said that the Ministry of Health was going into the matter with a committee in order to conserve our water supplies. I agree that we want to conserve our water, even flood water, instead of wasting it as it is wasted now. There are villages throughout the country short of adequate water supplies. With a little pride I would like to say that, thanks to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Leach) and others like him, an agreement has been made with over 20 villages for an


adequate water supply from Bradford, which has recently made an agreement also with Dewsbury and so saved that town great expenditure.
Some hon. Members are concerned with young men's labour camps and the work of youth labour camps. One or two Members would like this class of work to be extended. Recently, certain Members have seen compulsory youth labour camps in another country. Under the Yorkshire Ouse Catchment Board undergraduates from Oxford came forward to spend part of their vacation in the beautiful countryside near Helmsley, and there, with 60 or 70 unemployed fellows from the Teeside, thoroughly enjoyed themselves for four weeks doing a good job of work. They worked four hours a day, which is plenty long enough in the summer, and enjoyed the rest of the time in social intercourse. Not to be outdone 18 young fellows came from Cambridge and joined 80 unemployed young fellows without distinction of class, but all on the same job of work to try to make the river Rye flow the proper way instead of flooding the countryside. They were able to do it to the extent of 400 feet of river. I mention that as one aspect of the work of some of the catchment boards. All we did was to lend them the implements, and, remembering the experience some of us had in this House on a recent occasion, I should mention that every one of those instruments was returned in good condition.
I plead with the Minister to put away any hidebound theories which may have been foisted on to him by Rehoboam who preceded him in office. When he came to the throne, King Rehoboam asked for advisers. The young men said:
Your father whipped them with whips; you whip them with scorpions.
The catchment boards do not need whipping in order to fulfil their duties, but where there is a poor catchment board in an area like the Great Ouse, it is foolish to expect it to carry out their work without adequate financial resources; and those resources should be forthcoming from the Ministry of Agriculture.

4.54 p.m.

Major Mills: I beg to move, in line I, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

this House notes with satisfaction the progress made under the Land Drainage Act (as shown by the recent Report issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries), welcomes the further assistance provided for schemes of land drainage under the Agriculture Act, 1937, and considers that any review that may be necessary of the administration of the Land Drainage Act should be undertaken after consultation with the local authorities concerned.
In moving this Amendment may I assure the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) that I do not think the Act of 1929 altogether a bad one. Again, he dealt with the matter in a non-party manner and I cannot do otherwise after the tribute he paid to the hon. Baronet the Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson) and after the impartiality of the hon. Member who has just sat down in applying the term "self-satisfied" alike to himself and to my hon. Friend and to me. The hon. Member for Brigg seeks to commit the House to a statement that experience has shown that the Land Drainage Act cannot be effectively administered without further State aid. In my view, there is more reason to say that experience has shown that the Act is being effectively administered under present conditions. It is only necessary to contrast the state of things when the Act was passed with the present conditions to see how wide of the mark the proposition of the hon. Member is. The hon. Member spoke mainly about internal drainage boards, but I propose to deal with the superior authority, the catchment board, with which I am acquainted. Like many other Members, I can speak with knowledge of the conditions before the 1930 Act was passed and the conditions to-day, because I was a member of a drainage board set up in 1918, and since have been a member of a catchment board.
On 1st August, 1930, when the Land Drainage Act came into force, there was a state of things which was described by the Royal Commission as
a tangle of authorities of the most diverse origins and powers, none of whom, however, had jurisdiction over more than a part of any of the rivers of the country and none of whom had adequate financial resources.
That is not the case to-day. We have 47 catchment boards which have complete jurisdiction over the entire catchment areas of the principal rivers. These boards have been provided with financial


resources adequate to their responsibilities, which consist mainly of the direct control of the main rivers of their areas, including the principal tributaries, and exercising general supervision over all the drainage of the areas. The experience of the six years during which the catchment boards have been in existence has shown that truly remarkable things have been accomplished in bringing the administration of land drainage in England and Wales up to date and in getting areas better drained. There is a useful guide to what has been accomplished in a report on the operations and proceedings under the Land Drainage Act, 1930, from the passing of the Act to 31st March, 1937, which has recently been published by the Ministry. It is an interesting document and I commend it to the attention of all Members. I give them the warning that the first edition is being rapidly sold out and that there is a great demand for it. The chapter dealing with what has been spent and accomplished, Chapter 8, reads almost like a fairy story. It does not deal, of course, with all the schemes that have been put up and with all that has been done.
This chapter and Appendix 8, which deal with the question of State aid, to which the Motion particularly refers, show that on 31st March last 71 schemes, estimated to cost well over £6,000,000, would have been approved for grants varying from 15 to 75 per cent. Since then more schemes have been approved and the figure is nearly £7,000,000. In considering these figures it is necessary to remember that there was an unfortunate but inevitable slowing up in all such work between 1931–34. Up to 31st March, 1934, only 10 schemes estimated to cost £296,000 had been approved. Since May, 1935, the order has been "full steam ahead," with the result that works costing nearly £7,000,000 have been approved. In Chapter 8 will be found details of the schemes approved, such, for instance, as the Rye Bay Sea defence scheme of the Rother and Jury's Cut Catchment Board costing £177,000; the sea defence scheme of the North Norfolk Rivers Catchment Board costing £10,000; the training wall scheme of the Great Ouse Board which cost £85,000 to begin with and a further £30,000. There are other expensive schemes of that great

and important board, and of other catchment boards.
The schemes of my own board are not given in any detail. We have a State-aided scheme amounting to £37,000, and that has been approved for a grant of only 20 per cent., but we have not complained unduly. We are putting up a new and enlarged scheme on which we hope to get a higher rate of grant. Although we are the eighth largest board in area we are not a rich board, as will be seen from the fact that the produce of a penny rate is greater in 31 other catchment areas than in ours. In addition to our big scheme our menagerie of "Tiger," "Panther" and "Cub"—those are the names given to our dredgers—has dealt with nearly 100 miles of the Stour and its tributaries in a preliminary way and has got out of them literally thousands of fallen trees and stumps, and in addition to that preliminary work, has dealt completely with 4½ miles of waterway. I was a little sorry to hear the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Muff) criticise the personnel of some of the catchment boards, and I was glad to note that the hon. Member who moved the Motion made no such criticism.

Mr. Quibell: None whatever. I think they are doing well.

Major Mills: Thank you very much. I entirely agree. I think the catchment boards are composed of people who are admirably chosen for their job. Those whom I know are experts on engineering and waterways or have very great local knowledge, and they are getting through their business in a most efficient, quick, and economical way, arid we are fortunate to get their services.
It would, however, be more to the point to dwell for a moment on the schemes undertaken by the Ancholme and Winterton Beck. Catchment Board with which, I think, the hon. Member is closely concerned. I have made a few inquiries and find that the board have been extremely active and have done very well indeed. They have two big problems to face. The first is the defence of the catchment area against tidal water, and the second is to improve their main water-courses so as to provide adequate drainage for the low lands and to maintain facilities for navigation. In the first problem they were very early


faced with the difficulty caused by the erosion of the banks of the tidal River Humber, which form their northern boundary, but they got to work very quickly. They got approval for a 50 per cent. grant towards the money they were going to spend. The net cost was £2,328 and the grant was £1,164. Since then they have originated two bigger and much more important schemes. One which is estimated to cost £37,000, besides being for the benefit of land drainage, will also protect certain important highways. The cost of that was, therefore, split between the two services, and the drainage half of that, £18,500 I suppose, has been approved to rank for a 60 per cent. grant.
They have another big scheme to cost £20,000, and for that they have a 662/3 per cent. grant. As regards their second problem, the improvement of water courses, they have a big scheme to cost £23,000, and that has been approved for a grant of 60 per cent. It will be seen that that catchment board has been very active and has done very well, and I congratulate the hon. Member on its activity. It is futile to argue, in the face of the figures I have given, that further State aid should have been forthcoming, I should reply that they have fared very well. It may be said that all boards have not fared as well, and that is true, but it was always intended that grants should vary according to the needs of the areas, and the variation in the needs of the areas is so great that the variation in grant percentages must also be wide. The areas which are better off must be content with a moderate percentage. Here, for once, we have a needs test of which, I think, the whole House can approve.
Coming to the second part of my Amendment, I would point out that the hon. Member appeared entirely to overlook the point that further State aid was recently made available for land drainage under the Agriculture Act, 1937. The provision contained in that Act was largely welcomed throughout the country as likely to confer much benefit on agricultural land. The Act has only just been passed and cannot possibly be in full swing yet, and it does not seem to be reasonable to demand more State aid so soon. The grant under the Act of 1937 is 33? per cent. in ordinary cases, rising

to 50 per cent. in exceptional cases, if expensive material has to be used. That may seem a moderate percentage, but it shows that the Government appreciate the excellent start which has been made in improving main rivers and that they are willing to spend money on improving those minor water-courses which finally link up with the field drains.
As regards the last part of the Motion, the proposal to amend the Land Drainage Act is surely of vital importance to the bodies charged with the direct administration of that Act. The catchment boards have formed a Catchment Boards Association, which includes among its members the large majority of the 47 boards in existence. Their views are surely of the highest importance if there is any question of amending that Act. At their last annual meeting this summer the Minister definitely invited the catchment boards to consider this very question. My own board have sent in several suggestions to the association, and when all the boards have done the same and the association have carefully considered and harmonised those suggestions, no doubt they will send their views to the Ministry. I sincerely hope that the Minister will then bring forward an amending Bill, if it is found necessary, to remedy hard cases such as the hon. Member has indicated, but I am against the hasty legislation which this Motion seems to suggest.
It may be argued that catchment boards have no concern with rating as they are not rating bodies. That is so, but it does not follow that they have nothing to say, or that their opinions should be disregarded; on the contrary, I think their views must be valuable. The House must remember that the catchment boards were placed by the Act in supreme control in their respective catchment areas, and have the responsibility for the general drainage of those areas. They have been put over the drainage boards, which do levy rates, and, moreover, in certain cases they can issue instructions to those drainage boards. It would seem, therefore, that the catchment boards ought to consider this question of the possible amendment of the Act, even though they may not have direct functions to fulfil.
I am convinced that, having regard to the inevitable delay that occurred between


1931 and 1934, the Act has been efficiently and effectively administered by the Ministry and by the catchment boards, that further time is necessary to see what the effect of the 1937 Act is, and that amendment should only follow consultation with the local authorities, that is to say with the catchment boards or, where there are no catchment boards, the county councils. In conclusion, I should like to read three lines from a letter I received this morning from the clerk of my catchment board, as it pays a tribute to the way in which the Ministry of Agriculture have administered the Act:
In conclusion, I am pleased to say that the happiest relationship exists between the Ministry of Agriculture and this Board, and speaking for myself I have never found the Ministry other than exceedingly helpful.
I should like to call the attention of the House to the helpful spirit shown by the Ministry, to associate myself with this tribute, and to thank the Minister and his officers.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. De Chair: I beg to second the Amendment and, in doing so, I wish to say at the outset that I think the Mover of it did quite right in concentrating attention on the benefits which have already been derived from the Act. An attempt was made by the Mover and Seconder of the Motion to draw a red herring across the trail and to imply that the Act had been of comparatively little benefit. The Mover concentrated on its disadvantages—at least that was the impression I got—and if his Motion were carried it would definitely go out that the House had called attention to the administration of the Land Drainage Acts and was of opinion that there was an unsatisfactory state of affairs and that they would not operate successfully without further State aid. I think it was Disraeli who said that it was the duty of the Conservative party to show a passionate interest in drains, and in so far as the hon. Member opposite and his Seconder showed an interest in this problem of land drainage they were actuated by Conservative principles. It is a matter of regret to me, or perhaps I should say of doleful satisfaction, that he and his Conservative-minded friends who represent the agricultural interest on that side of the House are in a minority in their party, and I never fail to impress upon my constituents that if the Labour party

were returned to power he and his friends who advocate the necessity for land drainage and other important works for agriculture would be in a small minority in the party. They would be rather like Jonah in the belly of the whale—their outlook would be very dark.
I do recognise that the hon. mover showed a sincere desire, in the interests of agriculture, that the drainage of the land should be made as effective as possible, but he ought to have shown more recognition of the enormous advance made under the Act of 1930 in comparison with the state of affairs which existed previously. We admit the somewhat doubtful parentage of the Act, but we are honest enough to admit that the offspring is growing up sturdily—in point of fact, it was a departmental Act, the outcome of a Royal Commission—and we are concerned to see that it is administered as effectively as possible. I shall attempt to show that it has been administered as effectively as possible. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Christchurch (Major Mills) pointed out that in the second part of our Amendment provision is made for going into the details mentioned by the mover of the Motion in consultation with the county councils and the local authorities involved, but it would be a great mistake if we were to imply that the whole Act was unsatisfactory, and to create an impression that the Government had done nothing in the matter of giving grants to land drainage.
In my own constituency I have been concerned with the operations of the Ouse Catchment Board. The hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Muff) asked what had been done in that particular area. It will be within the recollection of the House that a considerable part of the Ouse catchment area was under water earlier this year and that dangerous flooding was only averted by strenuous efforts on the part of all concerned. I can tell the hon. Member that there are in preparation schemes for the Middle Level amounting to £40.000 and for the South Level amounting to £266,000. Those are in the nature of flood precaution schemes.

Mr. Muff: How long will it be before the money is expended—five months, five years or 15 years?

Mr. De Chair: This work is being put in hand straight away and will be accomplished at an early date. The whole point is that the work required for flood prevention in the Ouse catchment area is of a very much larger character. I understand that something like £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 is required to strengthen the walls of the Ouse and the training walls of the Wash. That is an enormous sum, to which the Government are prepared to make a grant of 75 per cent., if the catchment board undertake the scheme. I think that offer represents the highest grant made in the country to any catchment board.
When the flood broke out in March of this year I complained with some bitterness to the Minister that, generous as the 75 per cent. was, the floods were in operation and that it was a pity that money could not have been provided before to carry out the flood precautions necessary. We cannot deny that 75 per cent. is a very generous grant, and I think the Ouse Catchment Board will not deny that, but they recognise that they are faced with the problem of whether or not, in a thinly populated and comparatively poor area, they can raise the remaining 25 per cent. If the work required to be done would cost £4,000,000, the Government's grant would be £3,000,000, that is 75 per cent., and it would remain for the Ouse Catchment Board to find the remaining £1,000,000. That is a very considerable sum, and the Ouse Catchment Board are no doubt setting about deciding how they can raise it most effectively. Under the Land Drainage Act, 1930, the position is that catchment boards can call upon the county and county borough councils in their area for a twopenny rate. They cannot increase that rate and compel those authorities to increase their contributions unless a majority of the councils agree.
In the Ouse catchment area the position is that a twopenny rate raises £28,000 per annum. That sum has to go towards ordinary expenses, the maintenance of the works already in hand and other works that the authority wish to undertake. Another source of revenue for the catchment hoard is the internal drainage boards. The Act lays down that they can decide what they think is a fair contribution from the internal drainage boards. The position in the area is that the catch-

ment board are asking the internal drainage boards to raise £32,000. Hon. Members may say that they ought to be able to increase the contribution from the internal drainage boards, but the position is very difficult when you realise, for example, that in the village where I lived, Hilgay, a penny rate raises £4 12s.—not very much towards a scheme costing £4,000,000. That is one of the difficulties under which the catchment board labour. If they got £28,000 from the county and £32,000 from the internal drainage boards they would command £60,000.
The question arises to what extent they can finance a scheme for which they have to raise £1,000,000. If you assume that they can raise this sum at 5 per cent., as they can do with the sanction of the Minister, it would cost them over a long number of years £50,000 per annum for interest and repayment. That is the position with which the Ouse Catchment Board are faced if they are to carry out this very extensive work. They do not suggest that the Government's grant of 75 per cent. is ungenerous and they are determined to see if they can raise the remainder. Naturally, if the Government could increase the grant, the action would be appreciated. Some people take the view that flood is really no more of a menace to this particular area than that of air raid from a foreign country, in which matter the Government are prepared to make a go per cent. grant for air raid precautions. You cannot say that a 75 per cent. is ungenerous, and the Catchment Board do not consider that it is so. They are setting about raising the 25 per cent. with all the energy they have. I have no doubt that with the co-operation of the counties and of the internal drainage boards, who realise the urgency and the importance of this matter, it will be possible to raise that 25 per cent. and to get on with the work involved.
When you come to the question of internal drainage boards it seems that the mover of the Motion completely overlooked the matter. He is surely not expecting that he can condemn the Government for a lack of work done under the grants to internal drainage boards; the Act was passed only at the end of last Session, in July. The future will reveal the enormous difference that the Act will make to the administration of the internal drainage boards, and the


grants which are being made to them may substantially help them in their contributions to the catchment boards. The bottom is knocked right out of one part of the hon. Member's Motion by the fact that the new situation has been brought into being. There has already been a considerable rush to carry out work with the aid of the new grant. In my constituency an application has been made to the Ministry by the Downham and Stow Bardolph Internal Drainage Board for a grant towards work that will cost £3,610, and in the Hilgay Great West Fen drainage area, work has been applied for and application made for a 50 per cent. grant in respect of work costing from £1,000 to £1,500.
It is worth while going into the position, because when the floods were on in March these very people came to me and said: "We have these enormous tasks to fulfil. We have in Hilgay, for example, an obsolete pumping plant. The boiler is completely worked out, and it will cost £600 to replace it. How are we to do it?" I and others put those matters before the Minister at that time, when no grant was available for the internal drainage boards, but the Minister, fully recognising the justice of those claims, brought in at the end of last Session these grants for internal drainage boards. That is an enormous advantage to the agricultural community. It would certainly not convey at all a fair idea of the picture if the Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member were to go out from this House. It is explained in our Amendment that this new access of strength to the land drainage of the country has been introduced, but the details which the hon. Member raised seem to be such as he should have written to the Minister of Agriculture about. There were particular cases of hardship, and in those cases—

Mr. Quibell: The Ministry have known about those, because they have had their attention drawn to the matter for years past. It is nearly three years since this matter was taken up, but the Amendment pays no attention to those gross inequalities.

Mr. De Chair: The Amendment suggests that the whole of the question should be gone into with the local authorities. Surely it is the local authorities who know

all about the kind of detail with which the hon. Gentleman is concerned. I have no doubt that the Minister is bearing that point very carefully in mind. The main point is that the Land Drainage Act has been administered and has done an enormous work for the land drainage of the country, as was pointed out in the figures given by the hon. Member, but the new grants to the internal drainage boards will certainly bring a greater access of strength to the position.
In conclusion, I would say that from the agricultural point of view the question of drainage is of paramount importance, which I think the hon. Member recognises. When one considers that one-sixth of the land of England and Wales is now under the administration of these catchment boards one realises how the task is being taken in hand under the Act. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) will know the history of the Fens as well as I do, and he will remember how Hereward the Wake defied the Norman Conquest from the Isle of Ely. The Anglo-Saxon chronicler tells us how William, who was in camp at Cambridge, found it necessary to throw a bridge across to the Isle of Ely and drive Hereward out. It is significant that a great part of my district, the most prosperous part of it, was marsh land, or under the Ouse. Its reclamation and protection are going on steadily under the Land Drainage Act. If the descendants of Hereward the Wake and the people who live in the Fens can, with the help of this Act and the Government, complete the conquest of the menace of flood, they will have carried out a great victory.

5.29 p.m.

Mr. Riley: I would remind hon. Members that the Motion of my hon. Friend is concerned with a specific grievance. I want to emphasise that fact in order to call the attention of hon. Members back to that grievance. In doing so, may I say that others who are standing for the Motion have no particular quarrel with the Land Drainage Act of 1930, which is quite a different scheme, except in certain respects. It is a mistake for hon. Members to say that we do not think it has done good work or that it has not even been efficiently carried on. The word "effectively" occurs in my hon. Friend's Motion, and, personally, if I may be allowed to say so, I do not quite


agree with that word "effectively"; but the specific question which my hon. Friend has raised is the question whether, in connection with the experience of this Act of Parliament, there is not an injustice to a considerable number of poor people who come within the provisions, particularly, of the levy for district drainage rates. That is the real question, and it is the question to which I would ask Members of the House to direct their attention. As to the usefulness of this legislation, which of course we wish every success, there is no quarrel whatever, but I would ask the House to consider the position of a large number of humble people who are affected by this Act in villages where the district drainage boards operate.
I may remind the House that the incidence of this liability comes into two categories, as regards one of which there is no quarrel whatever. In the first place, there is the catchment area, and there are a number of catchment boards, whose finances are provided by the whole of the ratepayers in the area, including the drainage districts, the areas of borough councils and county councils, and so on. Under the Act they all contribute, whether they live in a city or in a village, but the contribution in that case is limited to a maximum of 2d. in the £; that is the most that can be levied for the purposes of the specific duties of the catchment board over the whole area. On the other hand, the Act provides that, in those areas where there are district drainage boards, the liability for contributions shall be, not 2d. in the £, but the full amount which is found necessary for carrying on both the maintenance of existing works and the initiation of new or the improvement of existing works.
The grievance is that, whereas the comparatively well-to-do populations in the county boroughs and in the great urban areas are only called upon to contribute once, and to a maximum extent of 2d. in the £, the people in the drainage districts contribute twice. They have to contribute on an equal footing with the well-to-do urban areas, and they have also to contribute on a very heavy footing for the district drainage rate. Hon. Members will have realised that the district drainage levy is not limited to 2d. in the £, but may be such an amount as the district drainage board find is necessary, and, as my hon. Friend pointed

out, in his locality, and in other localities too, even the agricultural labourer living in a village, in a cottage without a yard of land attached to it, the shopkeeper, the blacksmith, the publican, and so on, are called upon by the district drainage authority to pay, not 2d. in the £—they already pay that to the larger area—but 5s. in the £, and even, I understand, it may be 10s. in the £, upon one-third of the annual value of their property. That is the prievance which my hon. Friend is voicing here this afternoon. We contend that it is a grievance which has got to be met, and I hope that the Minister will address himself to it when he comes to reply. It is a substantial grievance, and it is emphasised by the fact that, while we all recognise our liability as residents and citizens, where-ever we live, to make our contribution to the problem of drainage and to dealing with the danger of flooding—that is clone by all of us in respect of the catchment board rate covering the whole area—

Sir John Withers: The Mover of the Motion mentioned that the landlord pays 1d. in the £, while the hon. Member says that the tenants pay 10s., or whatever it is. Would he kindly explain the difference between the 1d. and the 10s.?

Mr. Riley: In the case of the district drainage boards, the rate is levied, as prescribed by the Act, on, in the case of land, the full annual value as assessed for Income Tax purposes, and, in the case of other forms of property, on one-third of the annual value; but, while the total sum is received from these two sources, the liability which can be placed upon the landlord as such is only for that portion of the expenditure which concerns new works and improvements, whereas the other portion is for the maintenance of existing drainage works, and that is where the difference in liability lies. The House will see that there is in the present situation a substantial grievance, and we are asking the Minister to consider it and see what methods can be adopted in order to find a solution for it.
Before suggesting a solution, I would like to emphasise the obvious unfairness of the present incidence of this rate in the drainage districts. It lies in the fact that practically the whole of the work of a district drainage board is concerned with improving and protecting, not the


property of the blacksmith, the publican and other residents in the village, but the land. The expenditure is for the purpose of making the land better for agriculture and farming, and we say that it is unfair to ask the labourer on a weekly wage living in a village street, or the blacksmith, the shopkeeper, and so on, to find the money to provide drainage for the land which serves the large farmer. The present operation of the Act is unfair as between two kinds of agricultural occupiers or owners. In the case of the big farmer in a drainage district, with a farm of, say, 500 acres, his average rent may be 15s. or 20s. per acre, but there may be smallholders in the same locality. Generally speaking, their holdings will be situated near a road, for the purposes of immediate access, and their rent may be £2 an acre, or sometimes even £3 and £4· Therefore, this rate falls upon them two and three times as heavily as in the case of the large farmer with 500 acres.
We suggest that the Minister, in view of the experience which has been revealed so graphically by my hon. Friend this afternoon, and of which the right hon. Gentleman must be aware, might very well bring in a small amending Bill to exempt the occupiers of non-agricultural hereditaments—that is to say, the mass of the people who live in houses with no more than a garden attached to them—in a district drainage area, from liability for this rate. That would be a simple thing to do. Of course, the money would have to be found from some other source, and my hon. Friend suggests that it should be found by giving greater assistance from the State. I am not very much enamoured of more State assistance, especially for landowners. If the assistance is to be given by the State, if public money has to be found to drain landlords' land, then the nation ought to own the land into which the money goes. We are not, however, very much concerned about that. If the Minister cannot see his way to bring in an amending Bill which would exempt all these non-agricultural occupiers from liability for this rate, which is specifically a rate for the drainage of agricultural land, and does not benefit in any way the mass of ordinary village people—if he cannot do that, he might go half-way by issuing some regulation whereby the liability to pay

the rate should be, not upon the occupier, but upon the owner, with the provision that the owner should not be entitled to add it to the rent of his tenants. One of the anomalies of the Land Drainage Act is that all these rates fall, not upon the landowners, but upon the occupiers of farms, houses, cottages or tenements. The rate is levied upon all of these people, and only the small portion for which the landlord is liable may be deducted from the rent.
In conclusion, I should like to say a word or two about the Amendment. I notice that it says:
and considers that any review that may he necessary of the administration of the Land Drainage Act should be undertaken after consultation with the local authorities concerned.
We do not mind that, but I should like to ask how hon. Members are going to vote for such consultation? What is the Minister going to do? Is he going to meet our case by admitting that our Motion is right, or is the Amendment going to be adopted by the Government?

5.45 p.m.

Sir Ernest Shepperson: I would like at once to express my very deep appreciation of the kindly words that were said of me by the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) in moving his Motion, and to thank him for them. I am rather tempted to risk unpopularity with the hon. Member by saying a very wicked thing, "I told you so." I was extremely interested when I saw that this afternoon we were to have a Debate on land drainage, and that the Mover of the Motion was the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell). He has moved the Motion in, may I say, a very eloquent way. His Motion is a suggested Amendment to the Act, and may be considered a criticism of that Act. It is interesting that that criticism should come from that side of the House and not from this, because, as he has said, it was an Act of his own party, sponsored by Dr. Addison, the Minister of Agriculture in the Socialist Government of 1930. Therefore, we might have had that criticism from this side.
The chief grievance of the hon. Member against the Act is the incidence of taxation. The question of taxation and the form of the tax was decided in the Committee which sat upon the Bill, and, as the hon. Member quite rightly said at the


time when the Measure came before the Committee, he himself voted in support of his own party's policy. I was on that Committee, a Conservative opposed to the Bill, and I fulfilled, as I thought, my duty as an opponent and opposed the Measure; but, unfortunately, I was deserted badly by many of my colleagues. When the Division took place I found myself alone, the solitary opponent. The hon. Member's speech and the Motion clearly show that had he realised what was going to be the implication of that part of the Act he would have supported me. I am confident that many of my colleagues on this side would also have been with me. The position is that, before the Act of 1930, the lowland areas in this country, which had been accustomed to be flooded, in order to save their land from flooding, formed themselves into drainage districts. They applied taxation upon an acreage basis. A cottage at that time, on a few square yards of land, would only pay the rate on those few square yards, which was not worth collecting.
After the Act of 1930, the whole catchment area was brought within the scope of that Act, and catchment boards were set up to govern the catchment areas. They had control, not only of the catchment areas, which were new to drainage matters, but of the old local internal drainage bodies. They exercised the controlling influence over those bodies, and altered the incidence of taxation, by taking away the whole system of paying taxes on an acreage basis and substituting a system of taxation based on annual values. The hon. Member, quite rightly, has pointed out that a smallholder in those areas, with land adjacent to a high road, often has a high assessment. He has, perhaps, never been an Income Tax payer, and has never taken the trouble to appeal against that high assessment; and he finds himself, in some cases, paying twice as much per acre as a large landowner. These catchment boards govern the catchment areas without having money to function, and they look for their revenue to two sources. The first is a precept that they ask for, and obtain, from the county authorities within the upland areas and the whole of the catchment board. The second is a precept that they place upon the internal districts in that area. We have no quarrel against that. Our difficulty is that the precept taken from the county

area, the whole area of the catchment board, is limited to 2d. in the £, whereas the precept upon the internal districts is an unlimited amount. The case might occur that a catchment board has already expended the 2d. in the £ on certain activities, and that any further activities can only be paid for by the unlimited liability partner, the internal district precept. It may happen that, the 2d. in the £ having been spent, the internal district will have to meet the cost of other activities, whereas the work done may be no good to the internal district, and may, in fact, do it harm.

Mr. De Chair: The hon. Member knows that if the internal district object they can appeal to the Minister.

Sir E. Shepperson: The limit is 2d. in the £. If the drainage board exceed that amount, they have no other call for revenue than from the unlimited internal revenue. If they could not call on that, they could not carry out their duties. That is the difficulty with which they arc faced, and that is the reason why application is being made to the Government for a State contribution to the expenses of drainage. I am not one of those who are going to-night to criticise the Minister and the Government for not having been generous on drainage matters. I accept that, not only this Government, but past Governments, have been generous to drainage authorities in making State contributions to them. I want to thank the Minister for the statement he made a short time ago, that he is going to give further assistance to local drainage authorities and catchment boards; but I want to make this appeal to him, that he shall not penalise efficiency, that he renders similar help to efficient drainage authorities as to inefficient ones. It is the case with many local drainage authorities that a board has been very advanced, has kept its plant up to date, has taxed itself up to the hilt, and borrowed money for that purpose. A neighbouring district may not have acted so efficiently, may, instead of spending its money in that way, have kept the money in its pocket. When the Minister is contemplating helping those internal districts I ask him to render the same help towards the loans that the efficient districts have raised as he is going to render for the plant and works that the inefficient districts are contemplating obtaining under this assistance.


I know that in a short time he will bring in a Measure dealing with the whole of this matter, but I put it to him that he should encourage rather than discourage efficiency.

5.58 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. W. S. Morrison): Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House that I should make a short intervention at this stage, not to bring to a close a very interesting discussion, but in order to indicate the attitude of the Government. For my own part, and having lately come to the duty of administering the activities of my Department, I have found the Debate very interesting and useful. There are a number of questions connected with land drainage of an extremely complicated character. They are not entirely a matter of getting water off the land, but they arise from the fact that every step taken in that service brings you into contact with local authorities and financial provisions, sometimes of an extremely complicated kind.
The hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell), to whom we are indebted for this discussion, said it was a non-party matter. I think it is almost more than that, because the hon. Member criticised the Act, for which his party was responsible, and I am actually defending that Act. My chief claim for that Act is that, on the whole, the catchment boards have carried out their duties in an admirable manner, and great strides forward have been made in connection with the problem of land drainage. Past experience, though it shows that there are flaws in the jewel, on a broad view, should not make us too despondent when we reflect on what is being done. I think the hon. Member who seconded the Motion was the only Member who scolded the Ministry and the catchment boards, and I think the general impression he created was removed by my hon. Friend the Member for the New Forest (Major Mills) afterwards. I think that I can without exaggeration claim that the relations between the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as a Department and those who have to exercise the duties of catchment boards have, on the whole, been very harmonious and usually helpful. I say that because I should not like it to be thought that the somewhat grave charges which the hon. Member who

seconded the Motion made represented the general relations between the public and the Department over the matter of drainage. I do not think that anyone really imagines that that is the case, so I will try to deal with one or two of the more important points.

Mr. Muff: The right hon. Gentleman mentions in the report the fact about inharmonious relations. He does not put it quite like that, of course.

Mr. Morrison: I do not think that any two administrative Departments will ever see eye to eye, but I can say with truth to the House, that the relations between the Department and the catchment boards have been friendly. There have been differences, but I think we realise the difficulties of catchment boards. Though this Motion covers the whole aspect of land drainage, it has, in fact, been concentrated upon one particular point referred to by the hon. Member for Brigg and the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Riley). It is the question of the burden of rates upon persons who now have to pay. The one general observation that I would make about that is that any tax or rate is doubly onerous, and is felt as such when it is imposed upon people who previously escaped it.
I have a feeling—though I say this without prejudice to the closest and most sympathetic examination of the facts to which the hon. Member alluded—that a great deal of agitation in this case arises from the fact not that the rates themselves are heavy, but that they have to be paid at all by people who previously escaped payment. I do not say that there are not cases where, on an examination of the whole position, the burden is heavy, but it is quite clear that one reason why people now have to pay this rate who did not have to pay it before is the provision in the Act which makes annual value the basis for assessment instead of the previously almost, although not quite, general acreage basis. That was a decision that was come to in the course of the proceedings upon this Act when it was a Bill in the House of Commons. I do not want to rake up anything or waste the time of the House upon old, unhappy things and battles long ago. We are all liable to make mistakes, and do make them, but I should not like it to be thought that there was no case for annual value instead of


an acreage basis. The House of Commons, on both sides of it, came to the decision—I have been reading the Debates—after a good deal of argument had been adduced to show that there was justice in the annual value as the basis. For example, there is this consideration. The hon. Member for Dewsbury, in a very suggestive speech, dealt with this matter as if it were entirely a question of improving agricultural land.

Mr. Riley: Largely.

Mr. Morrison: His general argument was that the non-agricultural hereditaments ought to be exempted from this payment because it was, on the whole, an agricultural matter. Under modern conditions, that is not quite accurate.

Mr. Riley: I spoke of the internal district.

Mr. Morrison: I am coming to that. In many of the internal drainage districts to-day, I am advised, there is considerable urban property. The case of the hon. Member who moved the Motion is a very typical example. I think that the House and the public are inclined to get a wrong idea of this service by calling it land drainage. It is true that in a sense it is drainage, but an accurate description of it from the public point of view is flood prevention. If looked at in that light and its place in our social services is assessed, it is quite obvious that, in the case of an urban or semi-urban community in one of these internal drainage boards, floods may create 10 times the amount of damage they do in agricultural districts. Viewed from that angle, there is, I think, a case for contributions from persons who are so situated as to be very greatly damaged by flooding. That was a consideration which weighed with the Committee when the Bill was passing through the House, and it is the same consideration as the hon. Member for Brigg advanced when he admitted the justice of asking boroughs to contribute to the funds of catchment boards. It would surely be quite wrong that a borough which sometimes imports into the water-shed, through an elaborate system of pipes, water from another area altogether, and then proceeds to discharge it into the drainage arteries of the district, should be exempt from the general burden of drainage.
Though it is asserted that this is entirely an agricultural question, it affects dwellers in urban districts who are interested, like anyone else, in the question of flood prevention. The hon. Member for Brigg drew attention to the disparity which he alleged existed between the rates charged to occupiers and to owners. I hope that that matter has been disposed of by the explanation given by the hon. Member for Dewsbury. That is a matter which is imposed by the Act itself. It is the case, as he said, that in these internal drainage districts the owner can only be assessed in respect of what roughly may be called capital expenditure, whereas the work of maintenance falls upon the occupier. That is the Act that I have to administer.

Mr. Quibell: That is why I want it amended.

Mr. Morrison: Of course, the expenses of drainage with regard to the proportion that capital expenditure bears to maintenance varies greatly from year to year. The drainage board has to bear a great deal of capital expenditure when it has to re-equip itself with machinery, which is the principal feature of many drainage districts to-day. That would be greater than maintenance expenditure, but on the whole it would be true to say that, when an internal drainage board has equipped itself efficiently, the bulk of the expenditure is maintenance. I merely say that because I am sure that the hon. Member for Brigg would not like his Motion to be advanced on the footing that those who were responsible for administering the Act, whether the Ministry or the catchment or drainage board, are not doing their best within the limits of the Act. It is for that reason that I refer to it.
The hon. Member says that our experience has shown that certain Amendments are necessary. What I said last summer, when I had the opportunity of addressing the Catchment Boards Association, was that it would, no doubt, be necessary to amend the provisions of the Act, and I invited the co-operation of the Catchment Boards Association in the meantime in framing what they thought to be proper Amendments to the Act. I did that for this purpose. I find, when I have come to consider the whole of this elaborate financial structure of 1930, that I am overwhelmed with good advice as to how it should be altered. There


is only one thing that is unanimous about the advice, and that is that it should be so ordered that someone else rather than the tenderer of the advice should pay more. I would not like to bring before the House amending legislation of a half-digested character, which would mean that I should put forward proposals with which one-half of the authorities concerned agreed, and the other half alleged was full of inequalities. It is for that reason that I have asked the association to help me in the matter, and if they are agreed upon what should be good Amendments, then we can see what can be done. For that reason I prefer the Amendment to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman because there are a number of authorities concerned in this matter. The finance is very complicated. The rating problem cannot be solved in any easy fashion, and the experience of the hon. Member for Brigg on the Committee on the Bill of 1930 should teach him the folly of undue haste in assuming that he or I would understand the case to the full.

Mr. Quibell: I am not afraid of the right hon. Gentleman doing that.

Sir E. Shepperson: When my right hon. Friend consults the representatives of the catchment boards will he at the same time also consult with representatives of internal drainage districts?

Mr. Morrison: Oh, yes, Sir. There are more interests than those to consult. There are local authorities who are involved very much in this matter. They have their own financial responsibility which they are anxious to safeguard, and I would certainly give the fullest consultation on this matter.
I wish to say a word about the particular trouble of the hon. Member for Brigg. I do so because I want to make it clear that he mentioned this matter to me personally. He and one of his hon. Friends came to see me, and I have been made aware of the difficulties. I have tried to see what can be done, working always, as I must, within the four corners of the Act, to ease the position. I have appreciated that he has felt very deeply with regard to the position, and some of my hon. Friends on this side of the House are in a similar position. But whatever the rights and wrongs, there

are a number of people who have to pay this rate for the first time, and do not like it.

Mr. Riley: Poor people.

Mr. Morrison: Yes, poor people. There are ways, of course, in which a matter of this sort may, to some extent, be alleviated by administrative action inside the Act taken by the catchment or drainage board itself. The House will realise that in the machinery which catchment boards may adopt, there is really no coercive power for me at all. These are independent local authorities. My power is really restricted to seeing that the works which they propose are such as to justify the expenditure of public money upon them. They are bodies which have an independent existence of their own, and I have only a sort of supervision over the whole question. One of the things that can be done by internal drainage boards is to make differential rating orders, and these, when made, are submitted for the approval of the Minister, and if approved by him, come into effect. In some cases of hardship that device has proved very useful as a means of getting out of a particular hardship in a particular area. The other thing that could be done—and the hon. Member for Brigg himself suggested it—is that, in cases where there is a large urban area inside the internal drainage board, the boundaries of the board may be so delimited as to include a larger amount of the urban population, so as to give a wider basis for lucrative assessment for the relief of those concerned. In the case of this particular catchment board I am glad to say that they are making progress in that matter. They have been a very active body. They have been up to date in dealing with the great problems which confront them. They are only a small catchment hoard, but they have tackled their problems with great resolution and success.
It is the duty of every catchment board to arrange its interior boundaries for the purposes of the Act, and in this catchment area, considering the difficulties and the preoccupations of the board with erosion on the banks of the Humber which if it occurred would bring disaster to the whole area, I am not surprised that the board have found difficulty in framing an interior arrangement of the best sort. They


have made one scheme and they contemplate a second one for the internal district affecting Brigg to include more of the town. That may assist the problem of the hon. Member. I can claim also for my own Department that in this matter we have done our best to be helpful in putting the views of the hon. Member before the catchment board and seeing what can be done. This work cannot be done as quickly as might be thought. Expensive surveys have to be taken before the board can make a thorough job of this sort of survey. I feel satisfied that the board are aware of the position and are anxious to deal with it, just as I am anxious and doing what I can within statutory bounds for the relief of hardships of this character.
The hon. Member who seconded the Motion asked me how the new grants to internal district boards were going on. I found his speech a little difficult to follow. He did not seem to get quite clear the demarcation of my responsibilities, the catchment board's responsibilities, and the internal drainage board's responsibilities. For example, he accused me of having led the catchment boards up the garden when I announced the new grant for the internal drainage boards last summer. I never promised anything more to the catchment boards. The new money was entirely for the internal drainage boards.

Mr. Muff: I am sorry if the right hon. Gentleman misunderstood me. I had that in. mind. I am sorry if I did not make it plain.

Mr. Morrison: I accept what the hon. Member says and am glad that the matter is cleared up. These new grants under the Agriculture Act of last summer have only been in existence for a short time but already we have had applications for 74 schemes, which will cost £163,000. These schemes have been lodged with us and a large number have been approved. That figure, although it is not a colossal one, shows that this assistance to these bodies will be a real aid to many of them, and it also shows that they are appreciating it and are anxious to take advantage of it.
I am much obliged to my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment, which I prefer to the Motion, for these reasons. The hon. Member for Brigg says in his Motion:

experience has shown that the Land Drainage Acts cannot be effectively administered without further State aid
If that only means that the State, through my Department, is to continue making grants at the appropriate rate for approved schemes, then there is no harm in it, because that is the intention. We shall continue to make grants at rates which are considered appropriate from time to time. The original promoter of the Act, in his speeches, frequently pointed out that you must have an elastic system of State support for drainage schemes because the resources and the problems of each district are varied so greatly. For that purpose State assistance will be and has been forthcoming and we hope to continue it. If, however, the Motion means that in general there ought to be greater participation of the public purse in the problems of land drainage and flood prevention, that is not a contention which on the whole can be substantiated.
Land drainage or flood prevention, although it is of great national value, is and will remain to a very great extent a local problem. The persons who benefit from a great arterial road are those who travel upon the road, whether they live in one part of the country or another, and those also benefit who have their goods transported by road; but in the case of a flood prevention scheme there are certain persons who will benefit more from it than other persons, and those are the persons living in the locality. I do not say that the State has no obligation to assist people in carrying out these schemes, according to the necessities of the case, but I do think that there is a limit to the point at which you can ask the general taxpayer, living remote from the scene of the flood, to contribute to what is a local problem. The taxpayer has his own local problems. If he has not floods to contend with he may have other problems in his district which impose heavy local charges upon him. For that reason there is a limit to the amount that you can reasonably ask from a distant person for what is really a local problem in one respect.

Mr. Bellenger: What additional problems or burdens will the taxpayer have as a taxpayer?

Mr. Morrison: The taxpayer, on the whole, pays taxes for what are national


purposes, and as a taxpayer he is vitally interested in seeing these national purposes carried out, whereas in the case of floods, whether it is a scheme like that of the Great Ouse or other schemes, the people who are primarily concerned in seeing that that scheme goes on and that the land is properly drained and defended from water are the people living in the locality.

Mr. Bellenger: The right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood my point. He said that it was not fair to place any additional burden on the national taxpayer, who would have additional problems in his own local area. I asked what additional problems or burdens will the taxpayer have in his local area as a taxpayer.

Mr. Morrison: The hon. Member has misunderstood my argument. What I was saying was, that there are all sorts of local problems that perplex different localities. It may be floods in one district, it may be a high poor law rate in another. There may be many other causes, the cost of which falls heavily on the rates. In regard to the districts affected by these drainage and flood prevention schemes, my point is that there is a limit to the extent to which you can ask remote taxpayers to contribute to a local necessity. In the case of the Great Ouse we have announced that we are willing to ask the taxpayer to provide 75 per cent. of the cost of whatever approved schemes are put forward, and we have every reason to believe that the board are setting about their task and that they realise that the Government are anxious to assist them to overcome their particular problems.

Mr. Muff: The right hon. Gentleman has just said that people who are remote from the scene of the drainage area or the flooded area should not be expected to pay. Why, then, should Leeds and Bradford pay £20,000 a year in respect of the River Derwent?

Mr. Morrison: I am not saying that people who live away from these problems should not be asked to pay. As I have pointed out, in some cases they are paying—there is the case of the 75 per cent. grant which I have mentioned—but under the Act of 1930 the area of taxation for flood prevention was made the catchment

area and everyone inside the catchment area has to contribute towards that local problem. I have never subscribed to the view that cities and towns inside the area have no interest in flood prevention. Many of these great cities and towns import into the catchment area vast quantities of water for the needs of their own citizens and discharge it into the drainage system.

Mr. Muff: Not the Don and the Derwent.

Mr. Hopkin: Among the matters which the right hon. Gentleman will put before the Catchment Boards' Association will he ask their views on the question of bylaws and how the by-laws suit the work for which the catchment boards were set up? I have particularly in mind the fact that the Minister has now declared that two very important by-laws are ultra vices.

Mr. Morrison: My invitation to the Catchment Boards' Association is in the widest and most general terms, as I am willing to receive their views upon all the problems that beset them and to give due consideration to them, so that legislation when it is possible will be of a kind likely to meet the wishes of all those who are interested in this vital question. For these reasons I prefer the Amendment moved by my hon. and gallant Friend. It puts the matter into a fairer perspective. I hope that the hon. Member for Brigg will consider that as there is so little between us on this matter, and this question of land drainage has always been conducted in a very non-party spirit from its earliest conception, it may not be necessary to go to a Division.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. T. Williams: In view of the fact that so many hon. Members wish to speak, I do not intend to keep the House more than a few minutes. The Mover of the Amendment came into this House in 1932 when appeals were made to the then Minister of Agriculture for assistance, because thousands of our people were turned from their homes and had to live in elementary schools for nearly three months. Apparently, the hon. and gallant Member was pretty satisfied then, and he is satisfied to-day. He has put down an Amendment which the Minister, quite naturally, prefers to the original Motion. The Amendment asks the right


hon. Gentleman to do nothing. It says that certain things are necessary but that certain other things ought to be done in advance, such as consultation with local authorities, whereas the Motion is very definite and specific. The Motion refers to an urgent problem—inequality in the existing incidence of rating. We expect that the Minister will accept the Amendment rather than the Motion as an excuse for not telling the House that he is going to do one thing or another. I am not specially disturbed about that, but I would say this to the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment that they are easily satisfied and easily content. But for the fact that we had very disastrous floods earlier this year in the Great Ouse area I am not at all sure that the 75 per cent. grant would have been readily made available. I am not at all sure that, had it not been brought to the notice of the country in such an acute form, any grant would have been offered for that particular area.

Mr. De Chair: I said that the 75 per cent. was in operation before the floods occurred.

Mr. Williams: Whether it is sufficient or not is a matter for debate, but local people have never regarded it as the appropriate amount. In the Don Valley we had three floods in 13 months and on each occasion 1,000 men, women and children were turned out of their homes into elementary schools. These floods occurred for want of clearance in the main channel. This was an obligation imposed on the catchment board, but they were unwilling, without Government assistance, to undertake such a gigantic piece of work. The Minister of Agriculture offered us £30,000 for a scheme calculated to cost £1,100,000. Year after year the board has been pushing the Government—most Governments are like a wheelbarrow, they go when they are pushed. The last Government was pushed until the £30,000 became many more thousand pounds, and finally the last grant for the scheme was £300,000. T he work is being carried out, but not until disaster has overtaken the area on three occasions.
We feel that the 1930 Act was suitable for its purpose. It may be, however, that as a result of experience some weakness has been detected which is inflicting

hardship on certain sections of the community, and if a case can be made out—I think a case was made out this afternoon by the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell)—for immediate examination by the Minister, I hope we shall get a promise that the Government will deal with a hardship which nobody intended in 1930. The right hon. Member prefers the Amendment to the Motion since it asks him to do nothing except to say that before anything is done there will be consultation with local authorities. I would like to say this to the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment. He referred to Disraeli and declared that the Conservative party ought always to have a passionate interest in drainage. If they were as passionate in love as they are in drainage matters there would not be a married man in the Tory party. He made the remarkable statement that the 1930 Drainage Act was a Departmental Act, because it was based on the report of a Royal Commission. Therefore, it was not a Labour Government's Act at all. That is a very curious argument. Is he not aware that the Royal Commission reported in 1927 and that therefore a Conservative Government was in office for two years after that report and did nothing? The hon. Member will perhaps see the necessity for importing some passionate effort into the Tory party—it has been missing for many generations.
On the immediate problem before us I want to ask this question: The Minister accepts the Amendment, but he makes no statement concerning the Motion. In all probability it would be a wise thing, before amending legislation is introduced, to remove the inequalities of existing legislation, that local authorities should be consulted in advance. I quite agree with that part of the Amendment, but I should like the Minister to say that he is going to consult local authorities with the object of removing the inequality. in the Rating and Valuation Act of 1925, Section II Sub-section (1), there is a provision that the rating authority may by a resolution direct that in the case of property below the value of £13 per annum the rate shall be imposed on the owner instead of on the occupier. If the right hon. Gentleman will consult local authorities and make use of this section of the Act of 1925 it would in no way affect internal drainage activities or the activities of the catchment boards. I


must confess that catchment boards without any encouragement from the Government have done really good work in the country, and that particularly applies to my own division.
Will the Minister, instead of accepting the Amendment which means nothing, tell the House that he recognises that an injustice is falling on those who reside in rural areas, the very poor in the rural areas, that a very definite penalty is imposed upon them, and that he will consult local authorities with a view to removing it? I know that everybody who makes representation on the question of rating would saddle the rates on some other section of the community. We are all aware of that; but none of us was aware that the Amendment moved by Mr. Walter Guinness, as he then was, now Lord Moyne, an ex-Minister of Agriculture, would inflict this injustice on residents in rural areas, otherwise there would have been a great deal of opposition to it. It is no excuse to say that it was the fault of the Labour Government. If any individual is to blame it is a Conservative ex-Minister of Agriculture who moved the Amendment and persuaded every Conservative Member of the Committee with the one outstanding exception of the hon. Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson), to vote with him. But whether it was a Labour Act or a Conservative Act or a National Government Act is no matter.

Mr. Turton: The hon. Member will recall that the day before that happened a Conservative Amendment that a drainage rate should be limited to is. per acre had been defeated by the casting vote of the Chairman, and that every single Socialist voted that there should be no limitation of a drainage rate to 1s. per acre.

Mr. Williams: Like "the flowers that bloom in the spring," that has "nothing to do with the case." When Mr. Walter Guinness, as he then was, moved his Amendment in Committee changing the incidence of rating, he was responsible as well as those who voted with him, including the then Minister of Agriculture, for the injustice which now falls so harshly on residents in rural areas. Still it does not matter who was responsible;

if the injustice is there it should be removed, and I want to ask the Minister to take immediate steps to consult local authorities where this injustice has been felt most intently, and if he finds that a case has been made out to take steps to remove this injustice. If he will give us a positive reply on that point there need be no Division at all.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I will say this. I have been convinced that a review of the provisions of the Act will have to take place, but this is only one of the matters which will have to be reviewed. I undertake in the course of the review to pay attention to this particular question, to consult local authorities on the matter, and see if there is some injustice which can be remedied or whether some better system of raising the necessary money can be found. I will undertake to do that.

6.41 p.m.

Captain Briscoe: I propose to detain the House for only a few moments, but I should like to thank the Mover of the Motion for giving us an opportunity of debating this subject this afternoon. It is a matter of great interest to many of us, of great importance to agriculture and of great concern in connection with the employment of people on agricultural land in many districts of England. I should also like to thank him for raising the matter, because we have got from the Minister an assurance that he will consult the local authorities concerned and discover what amendments are necessary to the present legislation. There was one great shortcoming in the 1930 Act. It was that the poorer internal authorities could not get a grant from the Treasury, without which it was impossible for them to carry out work which they knew was urgently required. That shortcoming was put right in great measure under the 1931 Act. During the Debates last March some of us appealed to the Minister to put that matter absolutely right, and the Act which was passed in the summer has done so. I am delighted that the Minister agreed to do what we specially asked him to do on that occasion. But in the Debates last March I also asked a question about a particular internal drainage board in my constituency which has had the greatest difficulty in carrying out essential works in its district. I refer to


the Swaffham and Bottisham district. I understand that this district has made an application to the Minister recently for two grants, one for clearing out the engine drain, and secondly, a grant to enable them to renew the pumping installation at the point where the Bottisham Lode is pumped into the Cam. I do not know how far he has considered these applications, but I ask him to give the most sympathetic consideration to both, to consider what appropriate rate should be given to each and to do his best to choose the higher rate of the two.

6.44 p.m.

Mr. Bellenger: I do not propose to speak long on this Motion. Unfortunately I was not present when my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) moved his Motion. I do not pretend to be an expert on what is a highly technical matter, but as it has been brought to my notice by certain residents in my constituency I feel it incumbent upon me to underline the grievance which has been so adequately put forward by the hon. Member for Brigg. I should imagine, after what the Minister of Agriculture has said, that there will be little object in dividing the House, but that is a matter for the Mover of the Motion. This matter was brought to my notice by a few cottagers in an area in my constituency which was once very prosperous. They arc now, I regret to say, almost equivalent to a distressed area. The cottages are exceedingly poor; perhaps some might be termed dilapidated. Nevertheless, because of the rate levied by the internal drainage board, severe hardships have been placed on the occupiers, some of whom are unemployed. The people did not pay the rates, they were threatened with distraint by the officers of the internal drainage board; and they appealed to me to do what I could for them. I took the matter up with the clerk of the board, and after discussing the matter with him, I came to the conclusion that he could hardly relieve these few people from the drainage rate that had been levied upon them; but I ascertained in the course of my investigations that, as I believe the Minister has already said, it is possible to relieve some of the occupiers from the drainage rate, but not on purely compassionate grounds. I believe that has been done in one area by placing the rate on a large town, the name of

which I will not give, and that no objection was taken to the action.
In looking at the Motion and at the Amendment, I can well understand that the Minister prefers the Amendment. After all, he is only human, and in the Amendment there is some tribute paid to him. so that we could hardly expect him to refuse that gift which has been proffered to him by one of his own supporters. However, the Amendment implies that there is some necessity for a change in the law, and the right hon. Gentleman himself has indeed admitted that, and has given some promise that at some future date he will remedy these grievances to which my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg has called attention. Although undoubtedly the occupiers of hereditaments, as distinct from the occupiers of land, get some benefit from the drainage that has been inaugurated either by the catchment boards or by the internal drainage boards, they do not get that benefit to the same degree that owners of land do. That applies particularly to the area which I have mentioned. Those cottages in the little village of which I have spoken have no gardens, and when flooding does sometimes occur, the water goes into their cellars. It is easy to understand that these people feel aggrieved when they are asked, on top of floods in their cellars, to pay the drainage rate. There is no need for me to labour the point. I think it has been generally agreed by all sides of the House that these injustices need remedying, and I sincerely hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not allow the matter to go on indefinitely before he takes some action to amend the present Land Drainage Acts.

6.49 p.m.

Mr. de Rothschild: I wish to join previous speakers in congratulating the Minister upon the speech he made. As we are to-day dealing only with administrative measures, there are no very great political differences between opposite sides of the House. Still, I wish to join in the Greek chorus, and congratulate the right hon. Gentleman. When the question of drainage was dicussed last year, I made representations to the Minister that the internal drainage boards should be given grants for capital works. That was done by the Minister, and I very much appreciate what has been done in that sphere; but it must not be forgotten that the improvements of the internal drainage


boards increase the difficulties which there are at present in dealing with many of the main rivers, because the speeding up and aiding of the discharge of flood water into the main rivers make the burden of water carried by the rivers considerably greater.
In the case of the River Ouse, which interests my constituency particularly, the improvements of the drainage board have year by year contributed to the constant dangers which threaten the banks of the main river, as happened last winter. I should be the last to advocate the slowing down of the improvements of the internal drainage boards. The remedy must be found in the improvement of the main river, and in particular of the outfall to the sea. In the case of the Great Ouse, the remedy must be drastic, and it will be expensive. The total cost cannot be less than from £4,000,000 to £5,500,000. As we have heard, the Government are prepared to give a grant of 75 per cent., but, as was pointed out by the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment, it would be very difficult for the catchment board to raise the remaining 25 per cent., which is a very large sum indeed for a catchment board to find.
I would like to know from the Minister where the Government stand in this matter. Does the Minister believe that any scheme yet mooted is a feasible and an economic proposition? What is his view on the method by which the scheme can be financed by the catchment board itself, with the help of the Government? What is the ultimate limit of the Government's assistance? Is it to be 75 per cent. and no more? If so, how, in the right hon. Gentleman's view, can the balance required be found and the burden be distributed between the different classes of ratepayers in the catchment area? In his speech, the Minister tried to shed some of the responsibility that falls upon the Government, but I hope that in this case the right hon. Gentleman will not merely confine himself to saying that the responsibility for doing this work and finding the money is on the catchment board, and the people living in the area. I think we shall find out how the money can be raised, and it will be for the Minister to say whether the catchment board has the necessary powers to raise the money and do the work. The apportionment of responsibility between the Govern-

ment and the catchment board will not get the work done, and it will not save the fens from disaster if there is another flood. Sooner or later the work will have to be done.

6.54 p.m.

Mr. Turton: When the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) said that the Debate was degenerating into a Greek chorus, he must have been thinking of the frogs' chorus of Euripides; but I intend to take a rather different attitude from that taken by previous speakers. I agree with the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell)—and it has been my opinion since 1930—that the Land Drainage Act was a grave mistake. Hon. Members on this side of the House, who were in opposition in 1930, took that view when the Bill was before the House. Hon. Members have spoken of the Act as being an agreed Measure, but the present Deputy-Speaker moved an Amendment for the rejection of the Bill on Second Reading, and 54 Members of the Conservative party voted against the Bill on Third Reading. The reason we took that view was that we felt the Bill would place a grave burden upon agriculture. Mr. W. R. Smith, who at that time was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, said, on the Second Reading of the Bill:
I am surprised to hear Members who represent agricultural constituencies, and who are connected with the industry, speak of this Hill as one that would place burdens upon agriculture. My submission is that it will take burdens off agriculture. "—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 24th June, 1930; col. 1103, Vol. 240.]
I think that every one of the remarks made by that late Socialist Member have been proved to have been false.

Mr. T. Williams: indicated dissent.

Mr. Turton: The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) does not agree that the Act imposes burdens on agriculture, but if he came to my constituency or went to the constituency of the hon. Member for Brigg, he could be shown the inequalities and injustices of -.he Act.

Mr. T. Williams: If the hon. Member came to my division, where the catchment board is carrying out a big scheme of work, he would see that all the farmers within that area are reaping a benefit from the Act.

Mr. Turton: What hon. Members of the Conservative party tried to do in 1930 was to get a limitation of the burden, and in any reform which the Minister may make of this Act, I hope he will see that there is a limitation of the amount of the burden of drainage rates. In the first place, in 1930, we moved an Amendment to the effect that the Government should pay two-thirds of the expenditure of the catchment boards, and the right hon. Gentleman who is now Minister of Agriculture supported that Amendment; but the Amendment was not accepted by the Socialist party who at that time wanted grants from the Government for land drainage to be small. The hon. Member for Brigg is to-day advocating exactly the opposite policy; he is advocating a policy which he voted against in 1930. We asked the Government to give a large grant of 60 per cent., and I voted in favour of the grant being a large one. When my right hon. Friend amends this Act I hope he will amend it on the lines of the Amendments moved in 1930 by hon. Members of the Conservative party.
We moved an Amendment to limit the amount of the drainage rate, not to 5s. in the pound, as happens in the Brigg division, but to a much lower limit; we suggested that it should be Is. an acre. We were defeated every time by those very Members who are now deriding the Act and saying that they are the friends of the farmer, the smallholder and the allotment holder. I remember that in 1931 I asked that cottage gardens of agricultural workers should not be subject to the whole rate, but my request was greeted with laughter by the Socialists arid it was defeated by 25 votes to 12. The gargantuan laughter of the hon. Member for Brigg was heard on that occasion.

Mr. Quibell: It was not that we did not want to exempt cottage gardens, but that no one in the Committee was able to define what was a cottage garden.

Mr. Turton: Conservatives at that time pointed out that it was very unfair that an agricultural worker should have to pay three times the amount paid by a week-end cottager. That injustice has never been remedied. I asked Lord Addison, on the Report stage of the Bill, why an allotment holder should pay in drainage rates three times the amount pa id by a man with a garden, and Lord Addison said, "We will not bother about

that to-day; I will take it up in the Lords and have it remedied." But it was never remedied, and under this Act a poor man with an allotment has to bear the heavy burden of the full drainage rate. Let me pass from ancient history to what is happening to-day. The internal drainage boards are levying very heavy burdens from people in rural areas. I have had many complaints from my constituents about the incidence of the Land Drainage Act. First of all, they complain that the rates are based on the gross annual value and not on the nett. In other words, the man who is a tithepayer has to pay rates not only on his own produce of the land but also on the tithe that goes at the present time to the Tithe Redemption Commission. I do hope the Minister will consider the possibility of the rate being based on the net annual value as opposed to the gross.
I have further found that there are grave inequalities in what land is rated. If the Minister will go to the Rye Drainage Board he will find there that men who live at the top of a hill 150 feet high are paying very heavy drainage rates under this Act, while other men who are living on land 100 feet high, within one mile, are being exempted from all drainage rates. I know that what is called "The Medway Letter" does define what should be rated and what should not, but unfortunately "The Medway Letter" makes rather vague allusion to land with approaches cut off in the event of flooding. That has enabled the drainage board to rate land which is over 100 feet high. I think the House will agree that if you are going to rate such high land, and even land 150 feet high, you ought to rate the whole area. There is a strong feeling that if you are going to have a drainage rate you ought to spread it as far and as wide as possible. Spread it to the source of the river and I think you will find then that the burden will be much lighter.
In my experience of this Land Drainage Act, unjust as it is, I have found it to be most justly administered by the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and of the catchment boards. I have never heard any complaint about the way in which they have carried out the tasks imposed on them by this Act. One thing further is that the burden on the drainage board may be relieved


considerably by Section 15 of the Agriculture Act that we passed last year, but let the Minister not stop at that. Let him amend the Land Drainage Act and secure that we shall get grants for field drainage, so that the fields are also properly drained.

7.3 P.m.

Viscount Elmley: May I thank the hon. Gentleman the Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) for putting this subject down for discussion to-day, and the Minister for his very helpful and encouraging speech? I strongly support the view that this question of flood prevention and land drainage should not be treated in a party way; but if that is done, we must face up to the fact, as we did here this afternoon, that if the Act is not working out properly, all parties must take the blame. After all, this Act, although put into operation by a Labour Government, was based on the report of the Royal Commission appointed by the late Conservative Government, and, as far as I remember, was generally supported by Liberals. Perhaps there is a certain measure of lack of foresight attaching to those of us, like myself and other Members who have spoken to-day, who were on the Standing Committee which considered the matter, though that does not apply to the hon. Member who spoke just now or to the hon. Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson). Experience has shown us the defects of this Act, and whether we talk in millions, as the hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion did, or whether we talk in hundreds of pounds, as I am going to, we should recognise that it does affect people just as hardly.
In my constituency there is a place called Caister-on-Sea where there has been some trouble, and before I talk about that I would thank the Minister and his Department for the very kind way in which they helped me to meet it. I think from the Minister's speech this afternoon the path of safety was shown which could be followed up—if the catchment board will adopt differential rating or exclude this place altogether from the purview of the Internal Drainage Board. What actually happened, I think should be put on record, because probably the same sort of thing happened in a great many other places. This large village used to spend £10 a year in dealing with

a dyke which had been nothing more than a slight nuisance in the way of flooding. That was until this Land Drainage Act came into operation. Then a local internal drainage board was appointed, and nobody knows quite what it did because its meetings were held in secret; but, at any rate, the people who live there became astonished and alarmed to find demand notes for rates coming out of the blue on to them. When they came to look into it they found that when those rates were collected annually they would not come to £10 a year but to £700 a year. You cannot really blame these people for being alarmed and surprised, when previously it was only thought necessary to spend £10 a year on this matter, and then to have these notes coming along for a sum which amounted to about £700. Not unnaturally they wanted something done about this.
It was discovered that this money was going to be spent on new machinery, pumping plant and so on, which no doubt ought to have been done a great many years before. But then the people who live in this place put this to me. They said: "We have never had any floods here before, and it does not look as if we are going to. We would understand, if the sea were coming in, that this £700 should be spent on sea defence. But it is not. It is going to be spent almost entirely on agricultural land. It is not going to benefit us and we do not see why we should pay to benefit agricultural land which is not really any concern of ours." I was very glad the Minister referred to this in his speech. People who were, for instance, old age pensioners, were very disturbed at getting a demand to pay what was to them a very big sum of money. I still do not quite know what is the position where somebody gets a demand of this kind and where he is not in a position to pay. I should like to find that out, if possible. The people of this place did overlook this fact that one of the differences between agricultural and urban land in this matter is this—that when the agricultural land gets flooded, as it often does, in the long run no serious harm is done, because sooner or later the water goes away and not much inconvenience is suffered. But it must be remembered that in urban land a great deal more harm and inconvenience are suffered if there is flooding of houses.


That principle certainly has got to be borne in mind. The position is that the catchment board can, at their discretion, make a scheme of differential rating, or leave this place out altogether on the ground that it gets so little benefit, and that I hope they will do in this particular case.
There is one particular matter about the appointment of these boards to which I should like to refer. I was asked to find out if this internal drainage board was appointed in a constitutional way. I made inquiries and found it was. I would like to put this to the Minister. These legal statutory notices of which we read in newspapers are not very easy to see. The part of the newspaper that you avoid in reading most is that part containing legal notices beginning with the word "Whereas," and going on probably for about a column. I think the average person misses that out; he does not read it, and you cannot blame him. When a local drainage board take over any function which was previously done by a parish council, or any body of that kind, they should inform the parish council what they are going to do before they do it. There is no obligation on them to do that now, but I think it would be a matter of courtesy, and make for smoother working, if they would inform any body of that kind exactly what their intentions are going to be. Only recently was it that this internal drainage board sent their Clerk to a meeting of the parish council to explain the position and to offer representation of the parish on the board. Why it had not done that before I do not quite know. It seemed to me rather late in the day when so much work had already been done. In conclusion may I thank the Minister very much for the part of his policy which was announced last summer where he stated that grants would be made for cleaning water courses and for putting in new machinery. I think those things will help a very great deal, and will make the lot of the drainage ratepayer much easier than it has been before.

7.14 p.m.

Mr. Haslam: The Minister in his able reply summing up the drainage situation truly said that there is a very large number of inequalities and injustices in the working of the Land Drainage Act. Now

I wish to draw the attention of the Minister and the House to a grievance which has not yet been mentioned by any previous speaker in this Debate, that is to say, the grievance that, after the 1930 Act, a fresh district which hitherto had not been included in an internal drainage area was so included. That district to which I refer is the old market town of Horncastle and the district around. It is an upland district drained by a small river which, in its upper reaches, is a fairly fast-flowing river, something like a trout stream; and the drainage of that whole district has hitherto proved satisfactory. They had, think, a drainage board of their own. and I believe the rate was only one penny in the pound, or even not as much as that. When they were included in the internal drainage board area, together with a large lowland area where pumping had to be carried out all the time, the rate increased from one penny to 2S. 6d. or even 2s. 9d. in the pound.
That increased rate fell on everybody concerned. It fell on large owners and small owners alike, on the well-to-do man and on the poor man, and, as the Minister very truly said, people who have been accustomed to pay a rate of one penny in the pound do take strong objection when they are asked to pay a rate of 2S. 6d. or 2s. 9d. in the pound. It is only natural that they should want to know how such an increase is justified. Of course, the reason for the large increase in this case was the fact that the lowland area, in which pumping work had to be carried out continuously in order to keep the land in a usable condition, had to bear a very heavy rate, and the method of giving that area relief was to include this other area, which, generally speaking, had been satisfied with its drainage arrangements up to that time.
The people of Horncastle, naturally I think, show the strongest objection to the change. A great many of those affected are poor people. They object on principle to the rate and have allowed themselves to be fined. Incidentally, when the Minister amends the Act he might very well do away with the part of it which allows fines to be levied. These people allowed themselves to be haled before police courts; they had their goods dis-trained with results which everybody knows. Painful scenes and much public indignation have ensued. There is a


remedy for that state of things under the Act. I do not propose to weary the House at this late stage by quoting the terms of the Act, but the remedy lies in the differential rating to which the Minister referred. An internal drainage board is given power to divide an area into sub-districts and if it considers a district overrated it can reduce the rate or indeed abolish the rate altogether in respect of that district. The Act in this connection refers specifically to the question of altitude, using the words
by reason of its height above sea level or for any other reason.
In the case to which I am referring, however, the internal drainage board has steadily refused to put differential rating into operation. I would like to emphasise the fact that, according to the Act, they have complete power in that respect. They have to gain the consent of the catchment board which has levied the rate and there has to be confirmation by the Minister but if the internal drainage board in the first place say "No," that is an end of the matter. The Minister has no power. But although the Minister has no power, he is able to give reminders to the board, and I am very glad that my right hon. Friend did remind this particular internal drainage board a few months ago of their power in this respect. I am also glad to say that after three years of this heavy rate with all the trouble and indignation and expense in prosecutions which it has entailed, the board has consented to reconsider the matter and has set up a committee to examine the question.
I should like to express my appreciation and the district's appreciation of the Minister's action in this matter. Knowing what the Minister has done to remove inequalities to the best of his ability within the framework of the Act, I deprecate criticisms of his administration. I know from experience during the last three years how attentive the Minister and his officers have been in regard to the many difficulties which I, as a rural Member, dealing with these anomalies and inequitable cases, have had to encounter. As the Minister proposes to amend the Act there is one point to which I hope consideration will be given. It does not seem right that these powers in regard to differential

rating should be vested in an internal drainage board which consists of representatives of the lowlands, of the uplands and of the urban people who are elected each to represent his own particular constituents. If any amendment of the Act is undertaken, consideration should be given to the proposition that some more impartial body should decide as between these different interests. At any rate, I suggest that there should be a right of appeal before a final decision is made.
There is one other matter to which I wish to refer briefly. It is a very grave disadvantage, in my view, that all the catchment boards and drainage authorities do not hold their meetings in public. Catchment boards bring forward vast schemes. There is one coming forward now in my district. But the board meets in private and there is no explanation, no justification and no criticism of their proposals. That is contrary to the whole principle of local government, and to the principle which is followed in this House. When public money is being expended, there should be an opportunity for public criticism and public justification of the proposal. I believe that many catchment boards do hold their meetings in public and I express the hope that the drainage authorities in Lincolnshire ill follow the example set by practically all local authorities and by this House and that, as spending authorities, dealing with public money, they will hold their meetings in the presence of the Press. I will not detain the House further than to express my satisfaction at the fact that the Minister has promised to amend the Act. I agree with the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) that it needs amending at no distant date, because these inequalities produce great resentment and deep feeling, and hinder the operation of the Act.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. Liddall: I do not intend to join in the general chorus of congratulation which has been bestowed upon the Minister, because I am annoyed at the right hon. Gentleman for having intervened in this Debate as early as he did. After the proposer and seconder of the Motion and the proposer and seconder of the Amendment had spoken, there was only one speaker on each side of the House. We have heard a lot about the injustices that are being experienced in


the rural areas, but I regret to say that the built-up areas, the areas which provide most of the money, have not been permitted to voice their complaint in the House this evening. I merely register a protest on the ground that no one has been heard from the built-up areas, especially the area which is more hardly hit than any other by the administration of this 1930 Drainage Act. With that I sit down, as I have promised to do, in order to permit the Minister to reply.

7.25 p.m.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: With the indulgence of the House I wish, in the few minutes that remain, to put forward an aspect of this question rather different from those which have been put forward already. I refer to a system which is intended to improve drainage, to improve the quality of water supplies, to improve fisheries and to equalise, or rather to spread the incidence of taxation. Having listened to this Debate, I am more than ever convinced that we shall never achieve real success in the control of our rivers unless we are prepared to centralise and co-ordinate in representative bodies, all the powers and duties which concern particular rivers and their tributaries. I refer lion. Members to the fourth report of the Joint Advisory Committee on River Pollution which should now be in their hands. In that report the recommendation is made that all the powers and duties in connection with a particular river should be centralised in one body. The report goes on to suggest that the whole question of this co-ordination and centralisation should be laid before an authoritative body which would look into the matter and make recommendations. I urge hon. Members to read that report. If they do, I think they will agree that a very strong case has been made out for centralisation such as I suggest.

Major Mills: I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment, as I understand that the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) following on the Minister's statement, proposes to ask leave to withdraw the original Motion.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question again proposed.

Mr. Quibell: In view of the very sympathetic response of the Minister to our appeal, and the promise to inquire into the matter with a view to introducing

amending legislation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

HOURS OF LABOUR.

7.29 p.m.

Mr. Paling: I beg to move:
That this House, recognising the claim of the worker to benefit from the increased productivity of modern industry and realising also the urgent necessity for absorbing many of the present unemployed, calls for immediate measures for securing a substantial reduction in working hours.
If we look into past history in relation to the question of hours of work in industry we find that there have been some great agitations on the subject in this country. When it was the custom to work 11 and 12, and even 14, hours a day, an agitation sprang up in this country for a 10-hour day. A tremendous amount of enthusiasm was aroused by that agitation. Then we had the agitation for the 8-hour day, and we succeeded in achieving that reform for a large number of the workers in industry. But even today a great number of workers have not yet achieved an 8-hour day, as I hope to prove before I conclude. We believe that the time has come to go a step further even than the 8-hour day. We believe that the time has come to ask for and to achieve a 40-hour week. In view of the increase in production, in view of mechanisation, in view of unemployment. in view of the need for education for leisure and for physical fitness and even as a matter of social justice, it is time that working hours were further shortened and that a 40-hour week was put into general operation.
It is interesting to find that for the last i6 years there has been practically no movement in this country in relation to hours of labour. Immediately after the War there were big reductions, particularly for miners and some others, but as a matter of fact, if we look at the figures given in the "Ministry of Labour Gazette," we find that since 1921 the number of workpeople who have had their hours actually increased is approximately 1,660,000, and the number who have had their hours reduced is just over 1,000,000. There has actually been an increase in working hours of over 4,000,000 per week, and a reduction of about 1,500,000. Those are rather remarkable figures. I think the


general impression is that there has been a tendency, particularly during the last few years, for the hours of labour to be reduced, and there have been certain cases, but the figures that I have given prove that during the last 16 years there has actually been a fairly big increase. That is interesting too from the point of view that I should think, though I have no actual evidence to prove it, that there is no other period of 16 years in industrial history when such tremendous progress has been made in productivity as during the last 16 years; and that increase has been particularly noticeable during the last six to eight years, yet in spite of that fact, instead of having a reduction in hours of work in this country, we have actually had an increase.
I would like to mention the case of the miners, and here is something that has no parallel in history. We succeeded in getting, towards the end of 1919, a 7hour day. We had a 7½-hour day for some but an 8-hour day for the biggest proportion imposed in 1926 by the help of the Government, and I would like the Movers of the Amendment that is on the Paper to note that fact when they are asking that this question should be settled by agreement. Let them note that when hours have been increased it has been done by legislation brought in by their own Government. If we examine the record of the party opposite, not only in 1926–27, when this was done, but at Geneva we find that they have no desire to put legislation into operation for reducing hours, but when it comes to increasing hours, the present Government and similar Governments before them have had no hesitation in using legislation to that end.

Sir Isidore Salmon: Is it or is it not a fact that the Labour Government themselves, in connection with the coal mining industry, found that it was not possible to have a 7-hour day, but that they had to have a 7½-hour day.

Mr. Paling: I have said this before, and I say it again. Always remember that the Labour Government could do nothing during their term of office except with the help of the Liberals on the one hand or the Tories on the other, and that everything that we did was conditioned by that fact, but in spite of that, whereas the Tory Government, with the power

to do as they wished, imposed an increase of hours, the Labour Government actually put into operation a decrease of hours and brought the 8-hour day down to a 7½-hour day. If the hon. Member will encourage his Government to do even as well as the Labour Government, we will not have much fault to find with him. Having got an 8-hour day in 1926, the mining industry then came to the all-in 7½-hour day in 1931, and since then a Convention has been adopted at Geneva for 7¾ hours, including winding time. At the present time miners work 7½ hours a day, plus one winding time, which is on an average half-an-hour, so that at present your miner is actually working an 8-hour day down in the pit.
I suggest to hon. Members opposite, and particularly those who have put down the Amendment, that it is time something was done in that regard. In any event, if the Government cannot adopt the International Labour Office Convention for a 40-hour week in general, it is not asking much to ask them to adopt the Convention regarding miners for a 7¾-hour day, bank to bank. They have no hesitation in putting an hour on, but when it means taking a quarter of an hour off, it is asking too much for this reactionary Tory Government. We of the mining community have had a pretty raw deal since 1926, and we have had an equally raw deal in the matter of hours since 1931, when this Government came in, and I ask the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour to have some regard to this question of hours and at least to see whether he cannot spring this quarter of an hour. I hoped, when he came to the Labour Ministry, he would bring some imagination to it, but I am not sure that he is not as unimaginative and solid and just as spoiled as any other member of the Government. Let him get at this mining question and put it into operation. The Government have a very bad record in regard to miners up to the present, so let him attend to the matter.
The general impression in this country is that an 8-hour day is the law, but that is the case with regard to only a comparatively few workpeople. In the annual report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops, on page 60, it says:


''Laundries have been found working fairly regularly from 50 to 55 hours a week….
Long hours have been found in brick making, but inquiries in one district showed that one well organised firm was able to keep to a 47½-hour week, while others in the same area thought 50½ or 56 hours necessary.
There are letterpress printing firms in all parts of the country which work considerably mere than 48 hours….In the Midlands there has been pressure, not only in the metal trades, but in the leather, bakelite, and sveral other industries, and work up to 50 or even 60 hours a week has been fairly common.
There has been much employment in the woollen and worsted trades up to 52 and 54 hours a week, but in the cotton trade 48 hours has been usual….
In one garage a boy was employed regularly for a 7-day week. After prosecution, at which a fine of £2 was imposed, his hours were reduced, but it is understood that Sunday employment will be resumed as soon as he is 18….
In a small unregistered factory in which wireless aerials were made, a visit paid after receipt of a complaint disclosed some very serious cases of illegal employment, boys of 14 to 17 years of age having worked as many as 80 hours a week. The normal period of employment for one boy of 17 during the previous six months had been 7.30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Mondays to Fridays, 7.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. The boys had been brought from the distressed areas and appeared to have been willing to work the long hours for the sake of extra pay.
I wonder whether the Mover of the Amendment will be willing to let that stop without legislation and have nothing done unless it can be done by agreement. Unfortunately, in many of these cases, there is no one to make agreements with, and if the hon. Member and his friends will not realise their responsibilities as legislators to look after these people, I think it is time they got out and let somebody else do it for them. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgfield (Mr. Leslie) in the Debate last year spoke about hundreds of thousands of shop assistants working 60 or more hours per week. I understand that a committee inquired into this business in 1931 and reported in favour of a 48-hour week being made compulsory, but nothing has been done in regard to that. The recommendations of the committee have been ignored, and the only contribution the Government can make towards this question is to go to Geneva and spoil what other people want to do there. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell), who moved the previous Motion this evening, gave information in this House about a man in his division, at

Scunthorpe, I think it was, working 60, 70, 80 and go hours a week, and in one classical case men were working 116 hours a week. In addition, there are countless others, domestic servants, catering trade employés, people in hospitals, and so on. I would like to bring that to the notice of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment, and in most of these cases there is nobody to look after them, and it is our job as legislators to do it or to see that it is done. I hope that when we have finished this Debate the hon. Member and his friends will see fit to withdraw the Amendment and to let the Motion go through.
I come now to another feature of long hours. A few months ago a report was issued entitled "Report of the Departmental Committee on the Hours of Employment of Young Persons in Certain Occupations." I am told that there are about 125,000 of these young persons between 14 and 18, and that practically three-fifths of those 125,000 are between 14 and 16. Here is what is happening in this country at the present time with regard to van boys:
Of the 12,580 van boys whose cases were investigated by the Juvenile Advisory Employment Committees, 5,733 (approximately 45 per cent.) were found to work over 48 hours a week. Of these, 4,170 worked up to 54 hours, 1,295 up to 60 hours, 205 up to 66 hours, and 63 over 66 hours. These hours are in all cases exclusive of the average intervals for meals, which are taken as amounting to six hours a week.
Here is another instance:
An investigation made by the Manchester University Settlement into the hours of 27 van boys in Manchester showed hours of work ranging from 41 to 70 a week, excluding meal intervals. In addition various witnesses reported to us cases of van boys who worked up to 70 and even 90 hours a week.
Here is a case from the laundry trade:
The representatives of employers in the laundry trade suggested that the limit should be 54 hours, but the representative of the mineral water trade was opposed to any regulation which would prevent the van boy from working the same hours as the driver whom he accompanies.
The driver works 11 hours. What chance is there of getting an agreement in such cases? They do not want even 54 hours a week. I wonder what the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment would do with cases like that. Here is a passage dealing with errand boys and porters:
2,431 were found to he working for 48 to 54 hours a week, and 230 for more than 54 hours.''


Here is a passage with regard to the dyeing and cleaning trade:
The representative of the dyeing and cleaning trade stated that boy messengers were employed in collecting and delivering parcels of work, and worked from 50 to 54 hours a week.
The witness on behalf of the Newspaper Proprietors Association stated:
in one firm employing 81 boys, 16 finished work at varying times between 1 a.m. and 8 a.m.
In the section of the Report dealing with page boys it is stated:
The information obtained by committees for juvenile employment outside London shows that out of the 1,627 page boys and attendants in hotels whose employment was investigated, 227 were working gross hours (inclusive of intervals) of 66 to 72, and 334 gross hours of over 72…. The committees in London did not distinguish between page boys and attendants in hotels and those in cinemas. But it will be seen that of the 8,417 page boys and attendants whose employment was investigated no less than 7,030 were reported to work over 72 hours a week including meal and rest intervals.
I want to know what the Minister is prepared to do about these cases. He goes to Geneva and he is not prepared to put into operation the 40-hour week. He wants to leave it to negotiation. In the last speech made by the Minister on this question in June he spoke about men being in chains, and he thought that if we did anything by legislation on hours of work we should be putting industry in chains. I wonder whether he thinks that these children are in chains. Three-fifths of them are boys and girls between 14–15—little more than babies. There ought to be another solution for them; they ought to be at school. We ought not to have to ask for a reduction of hours for them. What are hon. Members opposite prepared to do about them? Are they prepared to see whether it is practicable, as the Amendment suggests, to leave them to some negotiations with industry? Is it not our responsibility as Members of this House to see that this condition of things is wiped out? When I came to the House this morning I saw a newspaper placard "White slavery in London." The words ought to be emblazoned from the housetops, "Child slavery in Great Britain for the sake of making profits."
When hon. Members opposite are talking about the impossibility of putting into operation a 40-hour week, or even a

48-hour week, and the undesirability of putting legislation into operation so as to leave industry free to solve these things itself, let them keep in mind, if not the adult, at least these children between 14 and 18 who are being so mercilessly exploited in the interests of profit. This country used to pride itself on being the pioneer on this question of good conditions of work and short hours of labour. We have lost our prestige since then. This Government's international record is about as bad as it could be in regard to questions of peace and war, but I am not sure whether their record in regard to what they have done at Geneva at the International Labour Office would not, if it were examined, prove to be just as bad. Instead of being a pioneer now we can hardly be called a bad follower of other countries.
When we are talking about a 40-hour week and the necessity for reducing the 8-hour day we are not asking for something of which there is no experience or for something extreme. We are not guilty of even good Left-Wingism. We are asking for something about which there is a lot of evidence from other countries and in which other countries have left us behind. New Zealand, for instance, has put into operation a 40-hour week in factories and a 44-hour week in shops. Is there any reason why we should be behind one of our Dominions? While I am talking about shops, let me say to the credit of some people in this country that I understand the Co-operative Society has a 48-hour week for its assistants and in the north actually a 44-hour week. I understand that there are some of the biggest shops in London which have also a working week for their assistants of 44 to 48 hours.
If they can do it why cannot others do it, and if others will not do it why are they not made to do it? If they have had all these years the opportunity in face of increasing productivity, of the social conscience which exists on this question, and of every encouragement and they will not do it, it is time somebody started to make them and to put legislation into operation in order to achieve it. France has a 40-hour week. I expect somebody will ask me to look at their difficulties, but after they have finished with them I have no doubt that a million workers will come out with the


40-hour week and most of the benefits they have enjoyed in the last couple of years will remain. Belgium has a 40-hour week in certain cases; and Czechoslovakia, which is not always looked upon as a pioneer, has 750 factories working a 40-hour week and 1,500 factories working even less.
We have plenty of examples to follow, and we can find examples at home where the 40-hour week has actually been put into operation and been proved a success. I have scores of examples in the literature before me, but I will confine myself to three or four. In June, 1934, Boots Pure Drug Company introduced in their factory at Nottingham a 5-day week in place of 5½ days without increase in daily hours or reduction of pay, and 5,000 workers were affected. In December of that year it was announced that the experiment had been a complete success and that as long as the co-operation of all concerned continued to be given there would be no need to revert to the 5½-day week. In May, 1935, Mr. G. L. Pilkington reported the successful operation of a 44-hour week adopted by the St. Helens Plate and Sheet Glass Industrial Council in August, 1933. This involved a 10 per cent. decrease in hours without wage reduction. There was an increase in the number of workers of 8.4 per cent. and of total output 15 per cent., while value of output per man rose by 11.4 per cent.
If hon. Members who do not agree about this question will have some regard to the history of the reduction of hours since the opening of the industrial revolution they will find that the same thing has happened in every case. It is said about an old French family that they never learned anything nor forgot anything, and that certainly applies to this Government. In June, 1936, Lever Brothers and Joseph Watson and Sons, soap manufacturers, decided to operate a 5-day week without reduction in wages. In February, 1936, Lingford and Sons, Bishop Auckland, announced that they had operated a 5-day 40-hour week without reduction in wages successfully for a year, and saw no reason to return to a 6-day week. The staff had become happier, healthier and more efficient.
What more do the Minister and the Government want? What are the Government afraid of? They issued a White

Paper some months ago giving a report of conversations that occurred between the Ministry of Labour and employers, and the employers laid it down that they would have nothing to do with the International Labour Office Convention for a 40-hour week. They were willing to talk, as they always are, but they laid it down that they would have nothing to do with it. The Government, like toe dog in the advertisement, listened to their master's voice and obeyed it, as they did in the Budget when the financiers kicked and the Chancellor crawled out of a nasty situation and apologised to the House; as they did on the Coal Mines Bill last year, when the President of the Board of Trade had the nasty experience of introducing a Bill from which the three main principles had been withdrawn, for the coalowners had spoken and the Government again had to listen to their master's voice. That is the trouble behind all this business. No set of industrialists in this or any other country have had a better set of servants in a legislative assembly who would obey their will than the industrialists of this country have had in this Government since 1931.
We are told that we cannot afford a 40-hour week. I have tried to indicate that people in other countries have afforded it and have found that nothing terrible has happened as a result, and that individual industries in this country have afforded it without terrible results. History teaches us that nothing terrible does happen. I have been looking to-day at a Fabian pamphlet. I notice that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a diligent reader of Fabian pamphlets, for he has quoted them. I read them, too, for they provide some useful information. The only thing in which I can find comfort to-day is that Members of the Government read Fabian pamphlets, for it may some day have some effect on them and teach them wisdom.
The pamphlet to which I refer gives the distribution of national income between four factors—wages, salaries, interest and profits, and rent. I find that in 1929 these four factors took £3,553,000,000 of the national income, and the wages portion of that was £1,486,000,000, or 41.8 per cent. of the whole, 59 per cent. going to the other three factors of salaries, interest and profits, and rent. And they say, "We cannot afford it." More than


£2,000,000,000 went to those three factors and £1,400,000,000 to the workpeople, that is, those who produced the lot. I suggest to hon. Members opposite, and to the Minister in particular, that there is room there for adjusting the question of hours if an alteration cannot be effected in any other way. The later figures are even more remarkable. In 1935 the amount distributed among those four factors was £3,745,000,000, a rise of nearly £200,000,000. Labour's share was £1,520,000,000, or 40.5 per cent. In spite of the talk of the workers being better off their share was, therefore, less in proportion to the amount produced than it was in 1929· The rent and interest and profits share went up from £1,123,000,000 in 1929 to £1,288,000,000, showing an increase of £165,000,000 over what they received in 1929· The workers' proportion of that was £34,000,000.
When hon. Members opposite talk about our not being able to afford to shorten the hours of work I ask them to have regard to that point of view. The working people are not getting a fair deal in that respect. It is time we had not only a shortening of hours, because there is no question of not being able to afford it, as these figures prove, but began to talk about a large increase in wages. If, in so short a time, salaries, profit and rent can increase by that enormous sum, it is time more money went into the pockets of the wage earners and that some of that enormous sum was used also to reduce the hours of labour, if no other way of achieving that end can be found.
I will say a word next about another feature of this business, the increase of mechanisation. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, of workers to-day work under conditions which necessitate a shorter working week and a shorter working day. That is needed particularly in pits. When I worked in the pits a good many years ago machinery there was almost unknown. Since then there has been an enormous increase in the use of machinery. The report of the Inspector of Mines this year shows that the amount of coal mined to-day by machines is 55 per cent., as against 8 per cent. in 1913—that is coal cutting machinery—and in addition there are coal conveyors for carrying the coal after it has been cut. The use of coal conveyors is increasing as

rapidly as it is possible to imagine anything increasing. In 1928 only 12 per cent. of the total output of coal was conveyed by machinery, and in 1936 it was 48 per cent. Do hon. Members opposite understand what that means to the workers? Working in a pit was bad enough before, but it is infinitely worse with the speeding up from mechanisation. From that angle alone a big reduction of hours is required. We thought 7 hours a day was good enough for the miners in 1921, and they still have several half-hours above that, and there is this increased mechanisation. What are hon. Members opposite going to do about that? Are they going to leave that question to ordinary negotiations between employers and employed? Has not this House any responsibility in the matter?
This is not the position in the mines alone, because in some of the factories where the mass production system is in operation the man or the woman is a mere machine, a cog in the wheel, an automaton. The workman's pride in his work has gone. There is now no art or craft about a lot of the work. If it is necessary to have these methods in order to increase production, some regard ought to be paid to shortening the hours of work of the unfortunate people compelled to work under such conditions, and I shall be glad to hear what hon. Members opposite have to say about that aspect of the question. Then there is the feature of increased production. What are the Government going to do about that? Production is increasing by leaps and bounds in nearly every industry, but the workers have got precious little in the way of increased wages as a result of this increased production, and are they to be denied any improvement in working hours? Are all the benefits of mass production, of all this new scientific technique, of all this new control that we have over production to go to the drawers of rent and profit and interest, and are workers to be excluded from any benefit? Up to the present the workers have been excluded from such benefits, especially in the last few years and particularly during the lifetime of this Government. I hope that the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment and the Minister are going to tell us what they propose to do in this matter.
Then there is the question of unemployment. Might it not help to solve


the problem of unemployment if we reduced the hours of labour? It might make some contribution. There has been a great deal of talk in this House about a coming slump, although I think we now call it, "a recession of trade" instead of using such a nasty word as slump. It will probably come. We on this side think it is inevitable, indeed we know that you cannot avoid it under capitalism. Has any regard been paid to shortening the hours of labour from that point of view? Everybody admits that the workers ought to have increased leisure to-day. What about providing increased leisure by reducing the hours of labour? The 40-hour week would make a very big contribution towards giving that leisure. We talk about the need for education. As I go about London I see bills posted up by the London County Council telling us of the opportunities which exist for education in night schools and evening schools for boys and girls who are at work. Can we expect any of those 125,000 referred to in the report I have quoted to go to a night school? Can we expect the hundreds of thousands of shop assistants and those engaged in the catering trade—I see that the representative of the catering trade has gone—who work such long hours to take advantage of these opportunities for education?
Then there is the physical fitness campaign—another stunt of the Government. I am all in favour of physical fitness, but by Jove, when a fellow has worked 48, 54, 60 or 66 or 70 hours a week —some children work those hours—he has not much time to go in for physical fitness campaigns, he wants to go to bed. Hon. Members opposite demand better conditions for their children than that, and I am not blaming them, but if they demand it for their own children, why cannot they have the decency to see that other children get it? If the Government cannot give us the 40-hour week, if that is too much to ask of this reactionary and tired Government, who have been pioneers in nothing except reaction, at least they might do something for those people who have to work the abnormally long hours to which I have referred. The Government ought not to sit there contented with the argument that we have only to leave things alone and they will come right. They do not come right. We on this side shall not leave things

alone, and we will not leave the Government alone. We do not want to fight in this way, but we want to impress upon the Government the necessity for a shortening of hours, and to bring it about in combination, if we can. We realise the opportunities which becoming a Member of Parliament gives us to rectify all these wrongs. In view of all this I hope that hon. Members opposite will withdraw their Amendment, as they did the previous Amendment, and agree that the time is now ripe for a big reduction of hours, and use the opportunities there are to secure justice for those who have not received it up to the present time.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Sexton: I have the greatest pleasure in seconding this Motion, which has been so forcibly presented by my hon. Friend. I am glad to do so for two special reasons, the first being that the Motion puts forward a fine project. What finer project can there be than to shorten the hours of toil and to bring joy and health and happiness to the workers of this country? Secondly, I am glad to do so because 11 years ago, in 1926, the Barnard Castle Division which I now represent had as its representative a Conservative Member who spoke in favour of increasing the hours of work for miners. I am standing up now to try to remove that stain on the fair name of Barnard Castle, which was for so long represented by a very eminent Member, the late Arthur Henderson. On every occasion when miners have spoken to me about the lengthening of hours in 1926 they have asked me to try to undo what was done by that Conservative Member in 1926, and so I am a proud man tonight, because I have been able to do it in seconding this Motion.
I asked what finer project there could be than reducing the hours of work, of arduous toil, and bringing happiness to our people. I know that in the Middle Ages it was necessary to work long hours, because man was then wrestling with nature. Man had to use his muscles; he could use only his muscles to get out of nature sufficient to live upon. Since then industry has developed from the era of hand labour to the era of power labour. In those days the forces of nature had not been harnessed, we were not making use of the power of falling water, of steam and of electricity. Now


we have machines, and surely, seeing that the machines have been made by the workers, and indeed have very often been invented by them, they ought to receive the greatest benefits from them. Surely the wheels of man's inventions ought to make the wheels of life run more smoothly.
The toil of past days was perhaps more arduous, but it was more varied. In those old days the man was master of his own fate. He owned his implements of toil, and not only the implements but the products of his toil. His occupation was therefore varied. If he was a craftsman who had a bit of land he could go to it and still further vary his employment. The change was as good as a rest. Even his long hours were not so arduous as working hours are to-day. My hon. Friend has said that work was more interesting in those old days because the craftsman first of all had his vision. Then, with tools in his hands, he saw that vision coming to reality before his eyes as a chair or a piece of furniture, for example, and as it grew before his eyes he had the joy of the craftsman which is lacking in this mechanical age.
In those days when man wrestled with Nature, on the very few occasions when the workers got together on their Mayday festival they always looked forward to the wonderful age which we have now, the golden age, the age of the machine which was to produce everything. What do we find? When we look around today, we see that poverty still exists, in spite of machinery and of the coming of the golden age of the dreams of the prophets. The same poverty exists, even just outside the walls of this very House. You do not need to go very far to find it. Modern labour may be less laborious, although that is debatable, but it is certainly more monotonous, and if it is monotonous it is more wearing to the nerves. I wonder whether hon. Members have seen the film "Modern Times," that wonderful satire—screwing nuts hour after hour; pulling levers hour after hour. Because of this monotony in the present mechanised system I say there should be fewer hours of work per day and fewer days of work per week.
Modern labour is not only more monotonous but is more uninteresting. The completed article is never seen. A

man pulls his lever or screws his nuts and he has not the joy of the craftsman. He becomes a mere cog in the machine. Yet the machines have increased production, and the potentiality of productivity is far greater. It has never been realised yet. My father was a shoemaker and I remember that when I was a boy it took him a day to make a pair of shoes. Now we can make hundreds per day. If he were to come back from the dead and I told him of this, he would say: "Then there will be no children running about barefoot if you have increased your powers of production so much." Yet what do we find under the present system of society? We find bare-footed children, and men and women going about in the Special Areas with worn-out shoes because they cannot replace them. Because man has increased productivity there should be fewer hours of work for the men employed. Man has become merged into the machine. There is no need for the worker to be part of the machine for all the working hours of his day and of his night.
Shortening the hours of labour would mean that the worker would become less of a machine and more of a man. As has been pointed out time and time again, the only cure for unemployment, the one sure cure—although I have heard many statesmen say there is no cure for it—is set out in the Motion; shorten the hours of work. That will give employment to people who have too much leisure and leisure to those who have too much work. The leisure secured can be spent in regaining the old spirit and joy in craftsmanship. What is the supreme object of the introduction of machinery? Is it not to reduce the volume of human effort? That volume can be reduced in two ways, by reducing the number of workers or, more sensibly, by reducing the number of hours of those who are employed. Machines should make it unnecessary for the workers to toil 8 hours a day as they do at the present time. Thirty years ago I stood at the street corners time and time again, and the slogan was, "Eight hours work, eight hours play, eight hours sleep and eight bob a day." Has there been no advancement in machinery and invention since then? Has there been no increase in productivity? We require a fresh slogan; not eight hours a day, but considerably less.
I am not going to speak very long, but I want to draw attention to one or two industries which certainly ought to come first in the reduction of working hours. My hon. Friend who moved the Motion mentioned the miners; I wonder how many hon. Members on the opposite side realise all that it means to miners to be down there, even in a mechanised industry, for 7½ or 8 hours per day. I wonder if it is ever realised that they have no place even to wash their hands, and that there is no lavatory accommodation. The miners are there among the filth, the dark, the danger, the nerve-racking machinery, the din and the dust, and you ask them to stay there for 7½ or 8 hours a day. The air is bad down there, even at the best of times. Then there are the picks which they are using at the present time. When the men come home after using those windy picks, as we call them, they are shaking as if they had a palsy. Eight hours of that; imagine it, and if you have a spark of humanity in your souls you will demand a reduction of those hours.
I live in a district where there are quarries. I had a friend up from the South of England not long ago who did not know of those quarries, and he went out for a walk. When he came back he said: "I did not know there were convicts here." The quarrymen have to go clambering over rocky ledges and over precipices with death 60 or 70 feet below them. If they are working at the bottom of the quarries there is mud during the winter time and they are exposed to all the weather. Quarrymen are not like miners who have too little air; they have too much air in some weathers. Those are two industries, and I could mention more, which would have a good claim to reduction of hours.
Then there are the domestic industries. I will not speak of catering but will leave that subject to hon. Members who know more about it than I do, but I shall say something about domestic service. When I go to and from the North of England every week, I often see upon Darlington Station shy girls of 15 years of age, and some younger, standing on the platform with their new cases in their hands setting out upon a long adventure. I dread to think sometimes of what the end of that adventure may be, and I dread to think of the number of hours they will have to work. They are not organised. The

Mover of the Amendment said that all these arrangements should be settled between the organisations, but these bits of shy girls coming out from the Special Areas, Wales and Scotland into this great London and other great cities, with nobody to protect them, have no organisation. If I had a daughter, I would eat grass before I would send her down here at the age of 14 or 15, and I again ask all Members of the House to give their deepest thought to the question of domestic service and the regulation of hours. This House time and again has regulated the hours of work for adults, and also for young people, and such regulation is even more necessary for the adolescent than for the adult.
The Amendment suggests that this matter should be settled by the employers' and workpeople's organisations, but what about the huge numbers who are unorganised, employers as well as employed? I know it is said that there are decent employers. I would reply that there are decent workers too, and I want decent consideration and decent conditions for those decent workers. Where organisations do not exist, it is the duty of this House to step in and fix the definite hours that ought to be fixed. What are the advantages of shorter hours of work? They are better health, more leisure, less unemployment, an increased and increasing joy of life. These things will not come by talk; they will only come by action; and I am very much afraid that we cannot get that action from this Government. The solution lies, in my opinion and in that of my colleagues on this side, in going back to the worker owning his own machines, controlling his conditions of industry, possessing the product, and devising means for its distribution. That is not the object of the National Government, but it is the object of Socialism and of Socialist Government. We believe that nothing definite will be done until the people of this country are determined to go forward to the public ownership and control of all forms of industry.

8.28 p.m.

Sir Arnold Gridley: I beg to move, in line I, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
is in favour of the reduction of working hours where it is practicable to make such a reduction without reducing the existing earnings


of the workpeople, and is further of opinion that the adjustment of hours and wages is a matter primarily for settlement by negotiation between the employers' and workpeople's organisations in each industry.
I would preface what I have to say by claiming that few Members of the House would have more sympathy with the general principle of the Motion put on the Paper by the Opposition than myself, and for this reason. When I think of my early days, it is not a very happy or pleasant memory. I was pitchforked into in apprenticeship in the engineering world in the terribly severe winter of 1895–96, when we had six solid weeks of continual frost, and the Thames was frozen over in many places. At that time I had to go down to the works at five o'clock every morning, and remain there until 11 o'clock at night; and so bitterly cold was the small office in which I had to start the work of the day that I had to take the ink bottles into the furnace house and thaw the ink before I could start work. Those were bad times. In the intervening period I and others who had a similar experience have seen a great improvement come over industry.
I do not propose to deal with the points raised by the Mover of the Motion, whom I always thoroughly enjoy listening to, because there is usually, in fact, invariably, "pep" in the "Yorkshire Relish" that we get from him. But one significant thing that struck me in reading his Motion was that it omits all reference to the maintenance of wages if hours are reduced. I assume, of course, that there would be no acceptance by hon. Members opposite of any reduction in weekly wages. I propose to deal with the effect that that would have in increasing costs, but hon. Members will agree that, if what they hope to achieve by this Motion came into effect in industry, that is to say, a 40-hour week, which, I take it, is the "substantial reduction in working hours" to which the Motion refers, they would achieve their object of absorbing many who are at present unemployed, by getting them taken on to add to the personnel who would be required on account of the reduction in hours. It follows obviously from that that the wages cost, as a percentage of whatever product may be made in the works, must go up.
I move about among, and have much contact with, employés, and, although I

know that here and there workpeople have been stimulated to demand a 40-hour week, I am bound to confess that I myself have seen very little real evidence of the demand from the workers themselves. I do not for a moment believe—I can only speak from my own experience. which is now a fairly long one—that the worker of to-day is dissatisfied with a 47-hour week. I have learned that what Labour dislikes more than anything else is the haunting fear of unemployment. Workpeople would much rather have a 47-hour week for 52 weeks in the year than a 40-hour week for 40 weeks in the year. What is of vital importance to the worker is not so much what he gets per hour, or how many hours he works per week, as what his annual income is, and we ought to keep that in mind. We have had, within the experience of many of us here who are engaged in engineering, a reduction in working hours as recently as 1919·when the 54-hour week was reduced to 47 hours. Did that reduction result in an increase in the numbers employed?

Mr. Kirkwood: Did it cause any employers to fail?

Sir A. Gridley: I will leave the hon. Member to develop his. argument later. I see opposite me some of my hon. Friends who have sat on the opposite side of the council table with me on many occasions, and I would remind them of the bad years 1921 and 1922. Then, unfortunately, trade was so bad that many engaged in the industry and allied industries had a 40-hour week which could not be avoided. I want to remind Members of a statement by a leader of thought on the Clyde in 1934. He said:
The hours of labour, it is suggested,"—
this is Mr. P. J. Dollan—
should be reduced from 47 to 40 hours. This will be a useful palliative but it should not be forgotten that working hours were reduced from 51 to 47—
he meant "from 53 and 54 to 47"—
after the War without effecting any increase in the number of employed. This reduction in the hours of labour only accelerated the process of rationalisation.
I would turn for a moment to the probable consequences if a 40-hour working week were applied generally throughout our great industry. There were conferences on this very question back in 1933 between the engineering union and the employers, and I would


ask hon. Members opposite to note that their spokesman, during those negotiations, admitted that a reduction from 47 to 40 hours per week would mean an increased wage cost of 6 per cent. I challenge anyone here to take a 10-year average of the ordinary dividends paid by the engineering firms and show that the average dividend exceeded 6 per cent. As a matter of fact, it was less.

Mr. Montague: Six per cent. on wages. That is not dividend.

Sir A. Gridley: I am coming to that. One thing we have to bear in mind is that, so far as our heavy engineering industries are concerned, our raw materials are the finished product of many other industries coal, power, forging, casting, copper, wire, and so on. Those are all the finished products of other industries. If a reduction to 40 hours per week in all those other industries was to produce only a 6 per cent. increase in wages costs—the figure of hon. Members opposite—what is to be the cumulative effect of all that on the finished product of those industries, which are the raw materials of our heavy engineering? There is no doubt, from my own experience, that shorter hours would put up the cost of production, and what would inevitably follow, if I know working men well, would be that there would be immediately generated a demand for a return to a 47-hour week; in other words, that there should be seven hours of overtime. Of course, seven hours overtime would be paid at time-and-a-third. The effect would be to put up the wages cost by 23 per cent. Those of us who hold responsible positions in the conduct of industry must watch with most anxious care anything which would tend to increase the cost of production. We have to depend very largely upon our exports, and I think it will not be denied that, in the case of our heavy engineering industries, one-third to half of our annual output is export. That business has to be obtained in fierce competition with the rest of the world.

Mr. Leslie: Why not have an international agreement?

Sir A. Gridley: I would like to refer, if I may, to the result of the 40-hour experiment in France. The "Times" Paris correspondent wrote on 20th September:

The 40-hour week has not only failed to solve the unemployment problem; it has retarded output and sent up the level of prices. Textile output is now lower than at any time since the crisis began in 1930, and building activity is about half what it was in 1933.
Here is a reference that perhaps will be accepted as even more accurate than the "Times" correspondent. "John Bull," another paper widely read by hon. Members opposite, and also by myself, sent a representative to France to investigate conditions arising out of the introduction of the 40-hour week. He reported as follows:
The price is a terrible one—so high that France is nearly at breaking point in her domestic economy. In a year the cost of living has swollen by more than 30 per cent., and most of the increase has taken place in recent months. To-morrow it may bound to any level because there is no control whatever…. There has not even been the feeblest effort by the French Government to check the plunder that is being committed in the name of the 40-hour week and holidays with pay. The Government in fact, seems to be utterly helpless and impotent. It appears to he still dazed by the inevitable confusion that followed the launching of these great reforms without the slightest preparation or planning. The Government looks on while the disparity between production costs and retail prices grows wider everyday….
No other conclusion can he reached than that … the 40-hour week is already doomed—at least, for a time.

An Hon. Member: Who wrote that?

Sir A. Gridley: The special investigator of "John Bull."

Mr. MacLaren: Mr. Elias, now in the House of Lords.

Sir A. Gridley: I started by saying that I had a good deal of sympathy with the purposes of this Motion. I know the word "sympathy" is sneered at very often by hon. Members who do not agree with us on these benches, although I never can understand why. But I would like to suggest how we can best combine and co-operate to make progress in the direction that they wish, on safe and sound lines. Give the workers the facts. I have never hesitated, as far as my influence has helped in that way, to ensure that workers are given the facts. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly) will remember that, in negotiating with the Amalgamated Engineering Union we reached an absolute impasse, and nothing but strife seemed to face our great industry. A small committee was


appointed to see whether, at the eleventh hour, something could not be done which would bring about a closer understanding between the two sides. I happened to be one of a committee of five employers set up to consider the situation, and when we met to consider what we were going to do, I put forward the suggestion that we should disclose to the Amalgamated Engineering Union the exact state of orders and give them the facts and the figures. I well remember that when I made that suggestion inside the four walls of the board room how very surprised my colleagues were at my having been so venturesome as to suggest it. I said to them, "Well if you have any other better alternative, produce it." There -was none, and, to cut a long story short, we went back to the executive body of our own federation, and after a meeting which lasted nearly all day, we eventually persuaded the great majority of the employers to fall in with the suggestion that bad been made. All the information, duly audited by the auditors of each of the firms, was put together, and the total figures and facts were placed before the Amalgamated Engineering Union. I believe that it is true to say that, while there have been differences between the two sides, during the time between that day and this, there has been peace between the parties as a result of this disclosing of the facts.
I trust the British working man, if you are honest with him and let him see exactly what you and others are getting out of the business which you are carrying on. I am strongly of the opinion that these matters should be brought about, not by trying to legislate for the whole of industry, but by leaving each industry to deal with its own problems and arrange its own conditions between employers and employed. If you do not agree with that point of view, then surely it must follow that the usefulness of trade unions would largely evaporate, which I as an employer would be very sorry to see. The surest way to secure progress and peace in our great industries is for men who are experienced, tried and honest representatives to sit down with the employers' representatives and talk matters over quietly round the table. Employers are sometimes spoken of in

terms that are somewhat derogatory. Believe me, we employers know who are the diehards among us, and if the practice of negotiation between the unions and employers' organisations continues, as I hope it will, you can leave it to the employers in these days to deal with their own diehards, who may want persuasion or even coercion.
There is one other method which I would advocate. I can only just touch upon it now, but I do want some day to develop it. I personally, want to see the worker having a greater share in the profits of industry, and I would like to tell the House of a scheme which, some 18 months ago, I put into operation in the works with which I am associated. All those workpeople who are members of trade unions get the trade union rate of wages, and I am happy to say that at present, and for the past two years, they have been earning very good money indeed, because the works have been working day and night on a three-shift system, and much overtime money has been earned. But there are other men in the nature of black-coated workers like foremen, labourers, draughtsmen, cost clerks and so on, who are called upon to work a considerable amount of overtime, but who do not get, in the ordinary course of events, extra pay. We have established for everybody who is not under trade union agreements a standard rate of salary or wage, and in bad times the worst cut, if there are no profits at all, which they would suffer would be a maximum of 10 per cent. On the other hand, when trade is good and profits are being made, all the people who come under that scheme are entitled, after 6 per cent. has been paid on the ordinary share capital, to rank for a rising bonus which has no roof. The result of that so far this year has been that those on fixed rates of salary or wage are receiving something like an addition of 33? per cent. to their pay.
I think that in that way, by negotiation to settle wages agreements, hours and other conditions of work between the masters and men, if I may use the term without offence, and by seeing to it that those who are not so safeguarded have a pecuniary interest in the profit which is being made by the firm, we shall do but rough justice and satisfy the worker that he is having a fair deal. I would empha-


sise my point by referring to an extract from a speech made by Mr. Ernest Bevin at the Trade Union Congress at Norwich, in September. It was about trades unions, and he said:
Our movement is a voluntary one and the claim for State regulations must not he carried too far. It might easily lead us on the slippery slope of the totalitarian State under capitalist control by which our very liberty may he destroyed. There are some industries in which, to prevent sweating, State regulation is essential. There are some matters in industry, like health, where State regulation is essential. In other industries the legalising of voluntary agreements is all that should be accepted. In the remainder, it is far better to maintain standards by trade union action wherever we can.
I think the progress that has been made in this direction was admirably summed up by the Minister of Labour on 6th July. He said:
In the field of industrial relations we are bound to pay tribute to the general effectiveness of the various forms of joint machinery for determining wages and working conditions. The value of this machinery was fully tested and proved during the long period of industrial depression, and it is equally proving itself since the general improvement of trade and industry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th July, 1937; col. 196, Vol. 326.]
As an employer who has worked his way up from an apprentice, through management, to directorship, I do ask that as employers we may have the full cooperation of labour. It is by co-operation, and not by coercion or blind competition, that we shall continue to have prosperous industry, and thereby enable the worker in this country not only to make a living, which in itself is not unimportant, but also to make a life.

Mr. Kirkwood: As one engineer to another, may I put this question to the hon. Member? Will he tell me one firm in Great Britain that went down in the engineering industry as a result of the reduction of hours of labour from 54 to 47? Will he tell me of one firm that went down during 1919 as a result of the reduction of hours?

Sir A. Gridley: I cannot call to mind the name of any particular firm that went down and out.

Mr. Kirkwood: As a result of the reduction of hours.

Sir A. Gridley: I need not remind the hon. Member that since that date an

enormous number of firms in the iron, steel, shipbuilding and other allied industries have had to write millions off their capital and to cut their losses.

Mr. Kirkwood: My point is that, immediately this reduction of hours happened in the engineering and shipbuilding industry on the Clyde my employer of labour, Lord Invernairn, declared that this reduction of hours would be the ruin of him and would put him in the poor house. Two years ago he died a millionaire.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. McCorquodale: I beg to second the Amendment.
I cannot say how much I enjoyed the speech, the grand electioneering speech, of the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Paling). He, like myself, is a Member for a Yorkshire Division, and in his case at any rate good stuff comes from Yorkshire. I cannot help thinking that if he had not been Deputy Chief Whip of his party already he would be certain of a place in the forthcoming election to the Front Bench. I think the hon. Member for Seaham Harbour (Mr. Shinwell) ought immediately to resign his unofficial post as head of the ginger group and hand it over to the much more capable hands of the hon. Member.
There was one portion of the hon. Member's speech with which I was in entire agreement, and that was when he spoke of long hours of juvenile workers. The hon. Member sitting next to him, together with myself and other hon. Members, spent long hours in the early part of this year dealing with this matter when we were debating the Factories Bill, and we can claim to have made some progress. I hope that in regard to the trades which we were not able to touch, where juvenile workers are employed, the Government will take action to prevent unduly long hours being worked by young people.
I should like to examine rather closely the Motion and our Amendment. The first omission in the Motion that struck me as significant was that there was no reference whatever to the maintenance of wages. I should have thought that that was the most important thing, and that if you asked any British workman whether shorter hours or the maintenance


of wages was the most important thing, he would say at once the maintenance of wages. Therefore, I regret that in the Motion there is no mention of the necessity for maintaining earnings. In that respect I claim that our Amendment is better than the Motion. If the Motion were carried in its present form without the mention of the necessity of maintaining earnings, it might be said that the trade union movement and the Labour party had declared for shorter hours at all costs, in spite of the possibility of a reduction of wages. I do not believe that they stand for that. Therefore, I say that in that respect the Motion is wrong and our Amendment is right and should be supported.
I am glad to see in the Motion, at any rate in print, that the 40-hour week has gone. "A substantial reduction in hours" is a much more suitable phrase. Until I heard the hon. Member in his speech get back again to the 40-hour week argument, I thought that in the Recess he must have been in France and had learned at first hand something of the miserable fiasco of the 40-hour week there. Finally, in the Motion the hon. Member calls for immediate measures for securing a substantial reduction in working hours all round. May I venture to put an argument which, in my opinion, is sound and indisputable? It is impossible to divorce hours of labour from rates of wages. It is impossible to insist that hours of labour should be governed by State regulations and regulated throughout the country by Parliament here, while rates of earnings should be governed by collective bargaining by employers' and employés' organisations. If hours are to be settled by law, and that is implied in the Motion, then sooner or later the State will have to take over also the regulation of wages. That is a danger to which Mr. Bevin rightly referred in the speech which my hon. Friend has quoted, and with which I absolutely agree.
In the totalitarian States, in Germany and Italy, you have this State regulation of hours and wages, and the whole trade union system, such as we have and are proud of in this country, employers and workpeople alike, has disappeared. At all costs, I would say to hon. Members opposite, let us save our-

selves from that state of affairs over here. In the Motion that system is inherent, and if it were passed it would presumably be adopted as the policy of the Labour party. I do not believe that any hon. Member wants anything of the sort. We all want, while maintaining the prosperity of this country and employment at as high a level as possible, and while maintaining the earnings of the workpeople, to reduce hours as often as we can. That is a sentiment with which hon. Members, wherever they may sit, will agree. How much better is our Amendment than the original Motion for obtaining that end? Let me study the Amendment and analyse it as I have analysed the Motion. Our Amendment first lays down the principle that the primary interest is that earnings must be preserved. Does anyone object to that? Then, that, where practicable, hours should be reduced. No one objects to that. Further, we maintain that the machinery of collective bargaining between employers' associations and trade unions which we have already got in this country is the best machinery to decide if such a reduction is practicable, and if it is practicable how great a reduction should be made. Does anybody disagree with that?

Mr. Kelly: Yes.

Mr. McCorquodale: It is interesting to know that the hon. Member disagrees with the duties of trade unions. We shall not forget that. Finally, I would point out that we use the word "primarily" in the Amendment. We say that:
The adjustment of hours and wages is a matter primarily for settlement by negotiation.
There are certain matters, quite rightly referred to by the Mover of the Motion, where you cannot apply this principle. Where it is a matter of health then the Ministry of Health or the Home Office must step in. But we maintain that where possible these things should be arranged by negotiation through the appropriate machinery set up between employers and trade union organisations.

Mr. Davidson: Does the hon. Member's support of the Amendment, which refers to negotiations between employers and trade unions, extend to assisting in a repeal of the Trade Disputes Act, which keeps trade unions back from the very thing he desires.

Mr. McCorquodale: I deny emphatically that the Trade Disputes Act has any such effect on the present discussion and issue. Let me take up a little more time and deal with the industry in which I work, the printing industry, because the procedure which we suggest in our Amendment has just been carried out in the printing industry to a successful conclusion. If I am not wearying the House let me give a short history of the negotiations. I think it is an apt illustration. I would first remind the House that the commercial printing industry of this country is a sheltered industry. We have practically no competition from abroad. Up to now we have been working a 48hour week. The trade unions in the industry some time ago approached the British Federation of Master Printers, the employers' organisation, and asked that negotiations for a 40-hour week should be immediately put in hand. The employers said they were sorry that a 40-hour week was quite impossible.
Having reached a deadlock at the early stages the matter was taken to the Joint Industrial Council, of which we are proud in our industry. The Joint Industrial Council after a long discussion recommended that the original demand and reply should be withdrawn and that employers and employés should immediately open negotiations on the question of a reduction of hours in the industry, with no reference at that time to the amount of the reduction. After the usual course had been pursued an offer was made by the employers of a 46-hour week, to be replied to by the trade union for a 44-hour week, and like sensible people on both sides they finally decided to split the difference and it became a 45-hour week. Everybody was very well pleased and it came into force in October of this year. We are now working on a 45-hour week. That is a good example in actual practice in an important industry of this country of the practical working out of a shorter working week by direct negotiations between masters and men, and I make this point, that it was largely due to having an efficient Joint Industrial Council in the industry that the two sides met on friendly terms.
There are two important points which I must emphasise. The actual cost of our printing has been estimated by the best accountant opinion we could get. The

cost apart from materials has gone up by 5 to 7½ per cent. We are an industry which works largely on individual orders; we must. It is what may be called a piece-work business, and it is therefore fairly easy for us to get our extra increased costs back from our customers. I am glad to say that we are in most cases able to do that. That is all right for a sheltered industry; a rise in costs can be largely recovered; but the great exporting industries must watch their costs and competitive charges much more closely; otherwise it is possible that more unemployment and hardship than benefit to the workers may be brought about by arbitrary action in shortening hours. Obviously a consideration of that sort is much more suitably decided by negotiation between masters and men than by a Debate in the House of Commons. It may interest hon. Members to know the personal reactions of the 45-hour week which we have noticed. One is that while in the South the working people like the idea of a five-day week, up in the North, and especially in Glasgow, they dislike it intensely. The men say that they do not know what to do with themselves at home on Saturday mornings, and the girls say that they are kept at home on Saturday mornings by their mothers making them do housework. The reactions have differed in different parts of the country as to the advisability of working five or six days with a shorter number of hours.
I should like to refer for one moment to France. I happen to be acquainted with the working of a small printing factory in France. It has not been doing too well—indeed, it has been losing money for the last three years, and this year is the first year in which it has worked out about equal. It is now working on a 40-hour week, with a rise in wages. The company by putting up its charges to a considerable amount have been able to recoup themselves. But this is the point: the working people in that industry told my friend that they were far worse off now in the amount of goods they can purchase with their wages than they were before the 40-hour week was introduced. That is what workpeople in that industry told my friend, and I think it is something that is worth careful consideration by all hon. Members, because we do not want to see that happen here. In conclusion, I would say to hon. Members opposite that


we all want to see as much leisure as possible for everyone, without undue dislocation of industry, without increased unemployment, without the loss of export trade, which is vital to this country, and without the loss of earnings to workpeople. I submit in all seriousness that the Amendment would be best able to bring that desired condition about, and that the Motion of hon. Gentlemen opposite would not have that desired effect. I urge the House to resist the Motion and to support the Amendment.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. Mander: I rise to support the Motion, which I believe deals in a much more realistic way with the situation that faces us than does the Amendment that has been moved. For instance—to take one point only—the Amendment ends with the words:
A matter primarily for settlement by negotiation between the employers' and workpeople's organisations in each industry.
All hon. Members know that, unfortunately, a large number of workers in this country are not organised in any trade union. It is a pity they are not and they would be wise so to organise themselves; but surely it is not right that they should be penalised because there is no organisation for them in the trade or industry which they have entered. That is one reason why I say the Amendment does not deal with the situation that faces us. The hon. Member who seconded the Amendment said that he did not think it was proper to fix hours without fixing wages at the same time. When I heard him make that remark, I could hardly believe my ears, because the hon. Member spent a very considerable amount of time at the beginning of this year—and I was very happy to be associated with him—in doing that very thing, fixing hours without any relation to wages. With regard to women and young persons, he made a very valuable contribution to the discussions; and what he did then was exactly contrary to the argument that he has just been making in this Debate.
The hon. Member who moved the Amendment, in such an interesting way, said that, apart from the question of hours, an element that might usefully be introduced into industry was some form of profit-sharing. That is certainly

one part of the advantages that ought to be offered to the workers. An adequate wage should be the first charge upon industry. There ought also to be adequate welfare facilities inside and outside the factory in the way of sport and recreation, there ought to be pensions schemes for old people when they come to the age of retirement, and there ought to be adequate means of consultation in conjunction with trade unions, not only in joint industrial councils, but in works councils, so that the employés may be taken into the confidence of their employers. That should be the case not only in the interesting and isolated circumstances to which the hen. Member who proposed the Amendment referred—at the height of a crisis—but as a matter of ordinary day-to-day routine in the conduct of business. That is a picture of the conditions that one would like to see. The hon. Member for Stockport (Sir A. Gridley) made great play with the 40-hour week, but there is in the Motion no reference to 40 hours.

Mr. McCorquodale: On behalf of my hon. Friend, who is not present at the moment, may I point out that the hon. Member who moved the Motion mentioned the 40-hour week in his speech?

Mr. Mander: That is an ideal one would like to see attained, but I am dealing with the Motion on the Paper, and not with what was said by the hon. Member who moved it. The Motion
calls for immediate measures for securing a substantial reduction in working hours.
Earlier in the year we spent a great deal of time in discussing the Factories Bill, but we did not succeed in securing any limitation of the working hours of men. A man of 21 years of age may be worked 50, 60 or 70 hours a week, and men are so worked in certain parts of the country in small businesses. It is well known that that is the case in some parts of the Midlands. It would be a good beginning to fix a definite statutory limitation on the hours of men. In the discussions on the Factories Bill, the nearest we got to a 40-hour week was 44 hours for young persons between the ages of 14 and 16. Although that was a very poor effort, it represented a slight advance. There is another step that ought to be taken. No person under 18 years of age should be allowed to work more than 40


hours a week, and there should be no overtime for such people.
Some speakers have referred to their personal experiences. I, too, have been associated for five years with an experiment where there has been a reduction of working hours from 47 to 40 hours a week. There has been a five-day week of 40 hours, and I have never heard of any difficulty on the part of employés in finding something to do on Saturday mornings. Great facilities are offered for gardening, and also for following the triumphant career of the Wolverhampton Wanderers in their "away" matches. That experiment, which has now been working for five years, has been successful in every way. No one wishes to go back on it. There has been no reduction in wages, and no one has been discharged as the result of the experiment. I do not pretend for a moment that such things could be done in the ordinary way. It was possible to carry out the experiment only because there was rationalisation concurrently. The two things were done together, and in wholehearted co-operation with the trade union concerned we were able to arrive at a scheme which has worked in that way. Wherever rationalisation is taking place in the country, opportunities are offered for doing the same sort of thing, and I hope that employers, employers' associations and the Government will do all they can, when they see such movements taking place in any particular industry, to seize the opportunity of pointing out the great possibilities that there are for an industrial advance and a shortening of hours, without any reduction of wages. Now there are difficulties where that is not taking place, but in the area to which I am referring there is no reason that I can see why a very substantial advance should not take place.
May I be allowed to congratulate the printing industry on the very successful negotiations they have carried out in securing a reduction of hours, an admirable example of the kind of thing one wants? I think they are to be congratulated on resisting the temptation, which I know was in the minds of certain people, that it would be much better for them to stand in with the other employers in the country and make a common front to any attack on the working week. I believe they have been very wise and very courageous in doing a thing that will

place them as pioneers in industrial reform. There is more than one kind of loyalty in an industry. There is no doubt the loyalty to one's competitors and fellow manufacturers, but there is a loyalty to one's employés, and there is a loyalty to one's customers, and I am quite sure that customers are delighted when any firm or industry finds it possible to put into operation any scheme which involves a substantial reduction in hours; and if it involves an increase in charges it will have to be borne, just as, in the case of charges on coal in connection with miners' wages a year or two ago, they were also gladly borne in certain cases.
I am sure the printing industry has given itself a magnificent advertisement in the steps recently taken, and I know that what has already been done is affecting other industries. The argument of their action is being used in trying to effect similar arrangements elsewhere in other industries, and I trust that it will succeed. It seems to me that what has been done in the printing industry brings to the fore another question, and that is the question of what steps you are going to take to see that the agreement is carried out in practice by all employers in the country; and that brings me to the question of the enabling Bill. We have had some experience in connection with the cotton industry through the Cotton Industry (Temporary Provisions) Act. There you have had 100 per cent. compliance with the rates during the last 18 months—that is the report of the committee—whereas before that it was only something like 50 per cent. I cannot help feeling that what has taken place must be some stimulus to a movement which I know is taking place towards the consideration of an enabling Bill. I believe we have reached the stage now when if any important industry on a national scale came to the Government asking for similar powers the Government would be bound to grant them.
I think we are not far from the stage when the Minister of Labour may be inclined to bring forward a general enabling Bill which will provide powers, without separate enactment in each case, to give authority to various industries, where it is thought right, to give the force of law to decisions come to between employers and employed. Now a point with reference to another step that has been taken. I do not see why some great Government


Department should not set an example to the country—should not themselves substantially reduce hours. There has been an agitation to secure a 40-hour week in the Post Office. It has been done in the United States of America. Arguments have been put up against it, but I should like to see very serious consideration given by the Government to an act of that kind, even if it meant extra charges, as it must, because of the impetus it would give, the fine example it would set, to employers all over the country.
I want to say a few words on this matter from the international point of view. It has been given very close consideration at the International Labour Office at Geneva on a number of occasions. I think the Minister was there himself at the recent meeting; but I cannot say that our country has stood out in a very satisfactory way at these gatherings. I am afraid the attitude of the British Government has been largely obstructive. They have resisted by every ingenious argument they could think of any step in advance, and it is a curious and regrettable coincidence that all the arguments they have used in Debate have been the arguments of the employers' associations, which have done their utmost of course, to resist any advance. Now the actual terms of the 40-hour Convention are these: First of all, each member of the I.L.O. which ratifies this convention declares its approval of (a) the principle of a 40-hour week applied in such a manner that the standard of living is not reduced in consequence; and (b) the taking and facilitating of such measures as may be judged appropriate to secure these ends.
Those are the main points. It is a purely general proposition. But the British Government refused to agree with it in 1935 and 1936. It is very regrettable that they should have done so because I believe they could have given their assent without prejudice to the difficulties which will certainly arise when you come to transform that general proposition into the more exact forms which it will require when applied to various industries. One of the chief arguments used by the Government was that you do not want to deal with this by a general international convention apart from wages. That is wholly contrary to many recent incidents in the.

history of the International Labour Office. The British Government never objected to dealing with this matter in this way in the Labour Charter in the Treaty of Versailles. They never objected to the Washington Eight Hours Convention—it is true they never ratified it—but they agreed to it at the time. They never objected to fixing hours without relation to wages in the Coal Mines Convention when they negotiated that. They never objected to it in the one specific example of the sheet-glass industry where agreement has been reached and where, I understand, ratification is going to take place. They never raised these arguments or difficulties there. In fact, we are driven back to the conclusion that this particular objection applies only to a 40-hour week, and that only because they cannot think of some better argument.
I should have thought that, particularly for this country, it was essentially wise that we should do all in our power to screw up other countries abroad if they are below our standard—use every pressure we can to get them to come into these international conventions—get the reports which they are obliged to give as to how they are carrying out their obligations under the convention and in the treaty itself, and test in that way how they are carrying out that duty. Nothing would be better or wiser in the interest of shorter hours in this country than for the British Government to take a lead in that direction. I do hope my hon. Friend who is going to reply will be able to show more sympathy than the Government have shown on some occasions not only here but at Geneva. It is not right that this great industrial country should lag behind. I should like to see us once more assuming the role of industrial leadership in the world which we once occupied. There are difficulties. They have to be overcome some day. Why not try to overcome them earlier rather than later? I hope the Government will take the opportunities which present themselves, at any rate in the realm of industry, to be once more the leaders of mankind.

9.35 p.m.

Wing-Commander Wright: First of all, may I reply to what the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) said about the attitude adopted by hon. Members on this side of the House who sat on the Committee which dealt with the


Factories Act? It is true that we pressed strongly for shorter hours but then we were definitely dealing with young persons, with whom, in some cases, women were also included. We looked upon that rather as a matter of health, but as my hon. Friend knows, a great many women and women's organisations were not altogether pleased at being placed in the same category as juveniles. I feel that the Mover and Seconder of the Motion showed the weakness of their case by their persistence in dealing with the subject from the point of view of special cases. They talked about juveniles and about miners, but no one has, so far, discussed the Motion from the point of view of applying a flat law to all forms of employment.
As another employer who has instituted a 45-hour week in the works which he controls, having carefully read the Motion on the Paper I feel myself compelled to support the Amendment and to oppose the Motion. I do so, not because I am opposed to the principle which the Mover of the Motion wants to establish, but because I am convinced from practical experience that the objects which he wishes to achieve will not be achieved by flat legislation of that kind. We must treat this question, as he says, from a common-sense point of view. We must view the situation as a whole and consider what is likely to happen if, by an arbitrary law, we impose shorter hours on all forms of employment in this country.
First, we ought to make clear what we mean when we talk about shorter hours. If we mean the sort of test referred to by the Mover of the Motion, that is to say the exploitation of certain unorganised workers to their detriment as happy and contented members of the community, then, of course, every one will agree that if ordinary methods cannot prevail, this House ought to take some action to deal with a matter of that kind. But I gather from the Debate so far, that that is not what we are talking about to-night. We are discussing whether we should, by law, fix a given number of hours for a given period and, by law, prevent any man from working longer hours than those under any conditions whatever. That being so, we must consider seriously what is likely to be the effect on the country and the workers themselves.
We must bear in mind what makes up the selling price of any ordinary article. I instance a motor car because my business happens to be closely allied with motor cars and also because it is an article which everyone can easily understand. If we analyse the cost of manufacture of a motor car, from the time when the ore and the coal come out of the ground to the time when the whole machine is assembled in the showroom, we shall find that 75 to 80 per cent. of the selling cost is directly attributable to wages. If we make only a reasonable reduction of hours, say something like 10 per cent., knocking four hours off the ordinary week, this, in effect, to the producer of the motor car is an increase in wages. A 10 per cent. reduction in hours of work will work out at an eight per cent. increase in the selling cost of the article.
We must also remember that although this reduction of hours is, on paper, an increase in wages—that is to say the worker gets a higher rate per hour because he is working shorter hours—the amount of money which he brings home in his wages packet on Friday evening is exactly the same. He has actually received no increase. But if as a result of applying this reduction of hours nationally there was a general rise of 8 per cent. in selling costs, then the worker might soon find himself in a very much worse position. There is the further consideration that the real wages of a worker are not entirely represented by the money which he brings home on Friday. If he is a family man, our great social services to-day add considerably to his weekly income. If we pass a law applying this proposal to all forms of employment, we shall affect our social services—hospitals, health services and so forth—and those institutions have no method of recouping themselves for the extra cost, except that of cutting down the amount of service which they give— which, in itself, forms part of the real wages of the worker. Those are points which have to be considered because they have their effect on the workman whom we are all endeavouring to help and not to hurt by this Debate. But that is not all. We have to consider seriously our export trade. A very large proportion of our workers are dependent on it and if, as a result of rise in costs, we do less instead of more export trade, then,


instead of merely working shorter hours the workman may find that he is working no hours at all.
These are some of the objections and difficulties which arise when one considers a proposal of this kind. I propose to state why I consider that it is almost impossible to put such a proposal into effect by a hard-and-fast law. I ask hon. Members opposite at what point in the wages scale they propose to introduce this law preventing a man working more than 40 hours a week. Is it to apply, say, to everybody who is earning less than £4 a week? Are we to say to every one up to that rate, "You come under this law and you shall not in any circumstances be allowed to work more than 40 hours a week"? Are we to say to those who earn more than that rate, "Because you earn more money, because you are in a different class"—that I think is the word which is beloved of our friends opposite—"because we have created this class distinction, you shall work as many hours as you like and you shall be entitled to make as much money as you like"? I do not believe that hon. Members opposite mean anything of the kind. But they must see that such a law would have to start to apply at some point, and I take it that when a man once came within the orbit of that law, he would not be allowed to work more than 40 hours a week. In other words, he could not work 40 hours a week in one factory and go across the road and work 20 hours a week in another. If he cannot do that, surely you are putting a bar on his advancement, and surely you are creating one law for the rich and another law for the poor, which I am sure hon. Members opposite would not agree to do.
Having said that, and having put what I see to be the difficulties and what are my objections to dealing with this matter by means of legislation, I now want to say that I believe that shorter hours can be obtained in a very great number of forms of employment, and probably in all, if the right spirit is there to negotiate the matter on both sides. I have had, as I have said, a fair amount of practical experience, and experiments which I have carried out in my works have now become facts and actual ordinary conditions of work. We have found that there is another weakness in this Motion, because

we have found that reasonably reducing the hours of work does not in fact find employment for more people. We are all inclined to look at this matter from the point of view of our own industry, and hon. Members must remember that there is a tremendous number of workers in this country to-day who are paid for some form of piece work or bonus on output. There is no doubt that shorter hours are desirable, because it is so easy to prove that the workpeople can still earn the same money without any detriment to their health—in fact, with a great gain to their health—through getting extra leisure time by working reasonably shorter hours.
That has happened in our works without our trying to force the pace at all. We find that people do actually produce more, they appreciate the long week-end, they come back refreshed, and they take a greater interest in the work which they are called upon to do, but what we have found is that the real way to obtain shorter working hours without raising the cost of living is by working a properly organised shift system. We have found that we can work a 40-hour week absolutely satisfactorily, and we pay the wages of the men who work 40 hours exactly as though they were working 47. What is even more interesting than that, we find that because we are getting 80 hours' work out of the factory every week. not only are we able to absorb this very considerable increase in wages and pay it quite easily, but we are actually ably to sell our product at a lower price than we could if we were working the ordinary, standard 47-hour week. The explanation is very simple, and if the 40-hour system could be applied generally by means: If shifts there would be no very great difficulty in the matter. I put that forward because I believe that these things can be negotiated between the employers' and employés' organisations. I realise that what suits my particular trade may not suit others, and it is easy, of course, to pick out examples which would be very difficult to deal with at all. but I have no doubt that with good v ill these could be got over.
I was surprised really that the Motion should be put forward in its present form by hon. Members opposite. I cannot help thinking that it is put forward to some extent with their tongues in their cheeks,


because I do not think they really believe that the trade unions are doing so badly in their negotiations in this matter. There is no doubt that there is a general move towards shorter hours, just as there is a general move towards holidays with pay. Public opinion is being aroused, and perhaps there is no better way of rousing it than a Debate such as we are having this evening. Public opinion is the greatest compelling force in this matter, and, as I say, I am only surprised that hon. Members opposite should have brought this Motion forward, because it seems to me that they are sabotaging the trade unions that they represent. There is no doubt whatever that if the Government take over the control of hours, they must logically take over the control of wages, and where would our trade unions be then? Like my hon. Friend, I would regret that very much indeed. I think I have put forward all the points as they appear to me and given quite clearly the reasons why tonight I shall support the Amendment.

9.52 p.m.

Mr. Buchanan: I think the hon. Members opposite who have spoken have proved too much. They have all proved how satisfactory shorter hours can be and how well they can work, and then in the same voice they have also attempted to prove that if you give shorter hours, it will ruin industry. It seems to me that that contradiction has run right through their speeches. It has been said of us here that in bringing forward this Motion, to some extent we run counter to the trade union movement. Everyone in this House knows that the trade union movement plays a considerable part in the organised work of everyday working-class life, but one has to recognise that, for good or for ill, large masses of the people who are affected by this question are not covered by any trade union at all. May I say to the Seconder of the Amendment that to a certain extent I had hopes of him, and up to the time when the Factories Bill went through Committee I tried to persuade myself that he could be reasonable, and that if you applied logic and reason to him you could debate with him, but after applying them during 40 sittings, I gave him up, and I am not going to be taken in by him to-night.
With the exception of the printing trade, since 1919 there is no organised trade in this country that has had a reduction in hours. Indeed, since 1919,

with the exception of the one that the hon. Member quoted, in October of this year, the great organised trades have suffered increases of hours. Who were better organised, who were better equipped from a trade union point of view, than the miners of this country? None. They come nearer 100 per cent. organisation than any other industry, and yet during that time, with all their trade union power and capacity, they have had to suffer an increase in hours. Take brick making. That industry has gone from having a 48-hour working week to having almost universally 52 and 54 hours, with all their trade union powers, and I say to my hon. Friends opposite that we have got to face this fact, that the trade unions can act and act properly only when certain things are on their side.
I have taken some part in engineering negotiations, and what are the facts that we are faced with there? When, four or five years ago, we asked from the employers a 40-hour working week, we were told that they could not grant it because of the state of industry. Now, when we ask for it, they do not use the same argument, but they say, "We cannot grant you that now, because we are too busy, and trade is too good." A year ago it was because the industry was too slack. Now it is because it is too busy. That argument means that we can never get it. When the industry is slack we cannot fight, for we have unemployed members, and no funds. When it is busy it is said that it cannot be done because there are no reserves of. labour. In 1919· in a National Government of a different kind, which way called a Coalition Government, Mr. George Barnes, who will not be repudiated in any part of the House, took a foremost part in the Washington Convention for a 48-hour week. Even to-day 50 per cent. of the people of this country do not yet enjoy a 48-hour working week. The miners have not a 48-hour working week. If you take the miner's time in descending the pit and coming up, it is far in excess. The time thus occupied should be recognised as part of the miner's legitimate work.
I heard yesterday a Debate about planning ahead. I do not claim that a reduction of hours will solve unemployment. We have to remember that when hours are reduced mankind's inventive genius


does not stop. Yesterday we were talking about planning for the time when inevitably there will be an easing off. What could be more appropriate than that we should to-night make this contribution to a plan for the future for a reduction in hours of labour? It is said that Parliament should not interfere in these negotiations between workmen and employers. Parliament, however, has interfered with employers, for in the Factory Act we interfered with the conduct of factories. We do not interfere with the trade unions. In the Factory Act we laid down certain minimum standards, but we did not say to the trade unions that they should not improve on them. Our claim is that Parliament should set up a certain standard of hours of labour which shall be the lawful hours, and that the trade unions should then negotiate to improve even on the legal standard. It should not be forgotten that 47 hours in the engineering trade is much more than it used to be. In every city a few years ago workers lived adjacent to their work. They are to-day miles away from their work, and I am not against that. In Glasgow the men used to have their houses against their jobs and they used to travel to their work in 10 minutes. To-day they take 45 or 50 minutes to get to their jobs. I maintain that that is part of their working day. In engineering work a man starts at five minutes to 8 o'clock in the morning, which means that he has to leave home at 7 o'clock. He stops work at 5.30, which means that he does not get home until 6.30. His day is, therefore, from seven in the morning until 6.30 at night, with one hour break—and this at a time when modern industry has produced wealth faster than ever before. Is that a defensible day? I have done it. I have gone to my work without any breakfast before I left home, and when I have got a glass of water about 9 o'clock in the morning the water has lain on my stomach because I had had no food.
The arguments that were used by the three Conservative Members to-day are the same arguments that were used against Shaftesbury and every reformer of the past. One hon. Gentleman said that if hours are shortened it must mean that wages must necessarily go down because the costs would have to be met

in some way. It is not uncommon for men in bad times—and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly) will bear me out—to go to their employers and offer to work 30 or 35 hours a week, and to do it gladly, in order that the work might be shared among their fellows. This Motion implies more than the actual reduction of hours; it means the limitation of overtime. I have seen during bad times a man walking up the stairs of a Glasgow tenement after working excessive hours and another man walking up the same stairs who had worked no hours at all. The two things do not fit—excessive hours here and no hours there. Capable men who want work cannot get it while other men overwork themselves, reduce their leisure and have to go without the better things of life. I will riot follow the hon. Gentleman opposite into the tricks of argument about the professional worker. What we are discussing here is a general Motion instructing the Government to get to work on shorter hours. It is the Government's job, if we carry it, to produce the necessary Measure. Parliament will then examine it. It is only a question of the will to do it. It would be nothing to Britain to grant a 40-hour week if there were the will to do it, if this Government had the same will to get hours down as they had to increase the hours of the miners. All we need is the attitude of mind, the desire to do it. I am certain that in a country which is rich and is undertaking all this expenditure upon armaments, richer than most of the men ever dreamed that it would be before they went to the War, if we have the determination of which I have spoken, we can give the toiling masses a decent reduction in hours.

10.6 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Butler): I think it may be for the convenience of the House if at this stage I outline the Government's attitude towards this private Member's Motion. I hope the House will forgive me if I put forward my arguments rather shortly, because I hope to adhere to the space of about a quarter of an hour for my speech, and if so I shall be the shortest speaker. It is not the wish of the Government unduly to take up the time of private Members in such a discussion by giving the point of view which they hold.


May I add to the shock which I have just delivered regarding the length of speeches, a tribute which I think I can pay to every single speaker for the sincerity with which the case he has presented has been put forward? The Debate has reminded me of one of the few seconds, or half-minutes, of leisure which I had during the summer in the course of my tour with the Minister of Labour, when I understood what energy meant. I was able to turn aside at a bookstall on one of the railway platforms and to purchase a book entitled "Pros and Cons." This book provided me with arguments on every known political subject; it was a most useful vade mecum for a Member of Parliament; and I have been reminded of that book by the pros and cons put forward in this Debate. We have really had a Debate, and I think the House is always to be congratulated when both sides of a question are sincerely and squarely put.
The hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Paling), to whom a tribute has already been paid for the ginger of his speech, raised the subject of coal mines. I am afraid that I cannot go at great length into the question of the hours of work in coal mines, for the reason that as regards the regulation of hours nationally my hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary for Mines has already received a deputation of the executive committee of the Miners' Federation and is already considering representations which they made to him. Pending that consideration by the Government I can make no further statement on that subject to-night, but the matter is receiving serious and active consideration. With regard to the references to the international sphere in connection with the regulation of the working hours in coal mines, a tripartite conference is to be held at Geneva in April to deal with this matter. It has always been the policy of the Government in the international sphere in connection with this question to look into the practical results of these general considerations and the system of a tripartite conference was so successful in the case of the textile industry at Washington that I hope it will be repeated in the case of the tripartite conference on the coal industry to be held in April at Geneva, but with this difference, that I trust more time and consideration will be given to the subject in this tripartite conference than was given during my visit to Geneva to the

very practical and excellent results of the tripartite conference in the textile industry.
The hon. Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. Sexton), in a sincere speech on the strain of modern industry, gave one of the reasons why the subject of the shortening of hours had been raised. That is the reason put forward in the recent report of the Director of the International Labour Office in which he said that the nerve strain of modern industry was so great that we must all give serious consideration to the shortening of hours. The other reason, which has been advanced in previous years, at any rate in the international field, was that which was included in the original Motion, and that is the relief of unemployment. Therefore, both the main reasons for the reduction of hours have been put by hon. Members opposite. I should like to say at this stage that the Government are entirely sympathetic to the possible reduction of hours in industry, and for both of the reasons given. We are at one in realising the strain of modern industry, and if we can devise any method of reducing unemployment we are out to use it; but we do not think this is perhaps the very best method of reducing unemployment. We believe that the very best method is to provide more work, and that we have done with some success. Since 1931 there are between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 more people in work, with new jobs; it would be trite for me to repeat the reduction in the figures of unemployment in that period.
We have some difficulty in accepting the shortening of hours of work as being the one efficient method of reducing unemployment, for the reason that it presupposes certain suppositions; first, that the unemployed are distributed among occupations in proportion to the numbers already employed in each occupation, which unfortunately is not the case. I think it is always worth while to look into the details of a problem. Secondly, it presupposes that the unemployed are evenly distributed and could be easily moved to the new opportunities which would be created in certain districts by a shortening of hours. Thirdly, it presupposes that there are a large number of the unemployed who are permanently and wholly unemployed, which is not the case if the registers are examined. It also


presupposes that those already in employment will be able to receive for shorter hours of work the same earnings as before, and that the total volume of business and of employment would not be diminished by reason of the increase of costs.
In referring to the question of earnings let me congratulate the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment on the practical nature of their speeches. They illustrate to us in this Amendment what appears to the Government the most sensible decision which the House could take at this stage on this matter. They refer to the danger to the workpeople of this country of our coming to any decision such as is contained in the original Motion. To maintain competitive power, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Stockport (Sir A. Gridley) and the hon. and gallant Member for Erdington (Wing-Commander Wright), industries have to counteract in some way increased charges. The House would do well to weigh carefully the possible effect upon earnings of a compulsory and general reduction of hours such as is suggested in the Motion. What effect would it have upon the earnings of the workpeople? However idealistic we may be in this direction, and many of us have ideals in connection with the reduction of working hours, the contents of the pay envelope are one of the most powerful factors influencing the mind of the workpeople when they consider this matter. I want to see for a few minutes what the industries have achieved by the method of collective bargaining which is referred to in the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport. It is very interesting, when we examine some of the results of the system of collective bargaining to realise that the workpeople have decided to take the advantage given by what the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) referred to as this rich country and its rich productivity; they have decided to take in most cases increased wages. In a good many agreements I have been glad to see the introduction of holidays with pay.
We welcome all those advances in the field of improvements in labour conditions. If we look into the results of collective bargaining, it is rather interesting to answer the hon. Member for

Wentworth by telling him that industries such as printing have reduced hours from 48 to 45, boot and shoe manufacture from 48 to 46, flour milling day workers from 47 to 44 and shift workers from 44 to 42, and heating and domestic engineering from 47 to 44. Other industries in which reductions have been made are ship repairing on the Thames, 45 to 44, quarries—this is on a point which will answer the hon. Member for Barnard Castle, but this is lime stone and port-land stone-47 to 44, and heavy chemicals (shift workers) from 56 to 48.

Mr. Kelly: Would the Minister give the date of that, please?

Mr. Butler: I cannot give the date.

Mr. Kelly: It was some years ago.

Mr. Butler: It is right that we should have accuracy in these matters. These are improvements in the hours of work that have been made in the last few years by collective bargaining. They will not go so far as some hon. Members will desire, but they show that the system which we are recommending to-night has definite advantages.
The question I want to put to the House on behalf of the Government is whether it is worth taking up the challenge of hon. Members opposite that we should adopt immediate means to shorten the working hours. It can mean only State intervention by legislation, which has been mentioned by several speakers. The question is whether it is worth while destroying the whole system of voluntary collective bargaining in industry between representatives of the workpeople and of the employers by imposing State coercion from the top. We maintain that the risk is not worth taking. We have maintained that point of view in discussions at Geneva, and we maintain it here. We have been called—I personally have been called this afternoon—reactionary for taking that line. I do not regard myself as a reactionary, nor do I regard the policy of the Government as reactionary. I regard the policy of the Government as being to save the freedom of our workpeople and our employers to negotiate together. Freedom is challenged all over the world, and it is a surprise to us that freedom in the industrial constitution of this country is being challenged by hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Hayday: Is the Minister aware—I have been to every international conference and international discussion on this matter—that the trade union movement has fully endorsed my action, taken at their direction, for a 40-hour convention?

Mr. Butler: I am glad to have had that interesting intervention from the hon. M ember. Before I sit down I would like to assure the House that the Government are not going to remain satisfied with the progress already achieved. Certain criticisms have been made during this Debate. The Government would not do right to stand on the ground that the collective bargaining already existing in this country is sufficient. There are many trades outside collective bargaining, and therefore argument on that ground would not stand. Let me take up the challenge and say that the Government have already undertaken discussions with a large number of employers' organisations in various industries, and with the Trades Union Congress General Council, on the subject of the absorption of unemployed into industry, including the proposal for the reduction of hours of work as a remedy for unemployment. I do not want to read out another catalogue of industries, but I could mention a number of industries in which the Government have undertaken discussions of this sort, which have had the result of stimulating, in those industries, examination of the various means by which more employment could be given and hours further reduced. Apart from such industries as engineering, iron and steel, wool textile, building, electricity supply, and so forth, the Government have deliberately undertaken discussions and action with other industries, such as the distributive trades.
There has been a certain amount of question in this House whether the Government would undertake discussions of this sort with the distributive trades, but I am glad to say that not only have discussions been undertaken, but many joint agreements have been made. The most important of these was that provisionally settled a fortnight ago, covering 80,000 employés in grocery multiple firms throughout the country. This is an example which shows that the Government are not standing still, and, when I tell the House that discussions are also taking place with both sides in the baking

trade and in the rubber goods and cinema trades, and that returns for an inquiry into conditions in the cinema industry are being received in the Ministry of Labour at the rate of about 100 a day. it will be seen that we are a Government of action, and are not content to rest upon what has already been achieved. With regard to the catering trade, which is always raised by hon. Gentlemen opposite in an atmosphere of vehement criticism, it is proposed to hold conferences with a view to considering the regulating of conditions in that trade as well.

Miss Wilkinson: Does the hon. Gentleman realise, that as a result of the report of the recent Committee on Night Baking, nothing is being done in the baking trade whatever?

Mr. Butler: The hon. Lady must wait and see. I promised to try to restrict my remarks to a quarter of an hour, but the useful interventions of two hon. Members opposite have caused me to take two or three minutes more. I will conclude, without further imposing the views of the Government upon a private Members' Debate, by saying that we believe that this question involves one of the main aspects of the British belief in liberty. Hon. Members opposite seem to prefer the line of compulsion, but on this side we prefer the line of guidance. That is why I think the House would be wiser to support the Amendment, which, indeed, I should think it would be very difficult to oppose—an Amendment which indicates belief in leaving this question as far as possible to the discussion of both sides in the various industries concerned—with the assurance that the Government are not standing still, but are prepared to initiate further discussions and to try to improve the conditions in industry. I am very much obliged to hon. Gentlemen opposite for raising this point, and I only wish that I could take up their challenges and occupy the time of the House longer on this matter.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. Short: A good deal of the time of the House lately has been given to discussions on foreign policy and the international situation. The present occasion is one on which we can turn our minds and our eyes to what might be termed the Home Front. My hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (Mr. Paling) is to be congratulated on having


brought this great and grave domestic issue to the consideration of us all. I must congratulate him on his vigour, and on the substance and character of his speech. At one time I thought he was likely to deliver an upper-cut to the Parliamentary Secretary before he had even left his corner. By sound arguments and appeal to reason, supported by a mass of evidence, I think he is justified in asking the House to vote for this Motion. The, movement for a shorter working day is gathering momentum and strength. Of course, this very necessary reform may be checked by reaction, by stupidity, by fear and hesitation, but I venture to say that if it is wilfully checked for any length of time, having regard to the facts, we shall pay a very severe penalty. Indeed, as the result of the neglect of the industrial revolution, we see scattered throughout the country monuments to that neglect which we to-day are being called upon to remove.
I would like to remind the House that the working class are no longer illiterate. They can read and write, and they see for themselves what is happening in other countries. They see that progressive employers are reducing hours from 47 to 45, and even to 40. They see that other countries are giving statutory authority to a 40-hour week, and they wonder that this Parliament, democratically elected, is not prepared to make some forward move in reducing the hours of labour, particularly having regard to the increased productivity of the people themselves. The Mover of the Amendment gave me the impression that he started work at a very early age. I see that he had a grammar school education, and also went to a University College. I rejoice that he had that opportunity. I did not. He said he did not feel that there was any great desire on the part of the working class for this great reform, but when he was working long hours, as he said he did, although he may have had the desire, I doubt whether his employers felt the desire, for any reduction in his hours of labour. He said, or he implied, that the slump in 1919 was caused by the reduction in hours.

Sir A. Gridley: Oh, no.

Mr. Short: I venture to say that the slump was the aftermath of war. There was demobilisation, and millions of men

coming back from the front. There were many factors calculated to disturb industry. The reduction of hours from 54 to 47 had nothing to do with the slump which occurred shortly after. The hon. Member also stressed the importance of negotiation, but he said that this reform—not the 40-hour week, but a substantial reduction in working hours, for which we are asking—could not be achieved, was not possible, nor, indeed, probable, because of the increasing cost of production. His speech was based upon the case put forward by the Engineering Employers' Federation. The very arguments which he used are to be found in the green books. We are told by the Parliamentary Secretary to negotiate. It is the policy of non-intervention. We are to leave it alone, do nothing, but always come down on the side of the employers, and that is what the Government intend to do. Negotiation! Why, the engineering industry have applied to the Engineering Employers' Federation for a reduction of hours—for a 40-hour week—and they have been told that the industry cannot afford it, and that it would ruin the employers, or words to that effect. What is the use of the hon. Member for Stockport (Sir A. Gridley) standing there moving his Amendment and telling us to go on with negotiations?

Sir A. Gridley: I suppose that the hon. Gentleman will admit that the employers have recently conceded a substantial increase in wages, and also holidays with pay?

Mr. Short: We arc not discussing that question at all, but I should think they have given advances in wages and agreed to holidays with pay having regard to the large profits in the engineering industry and the great impetus given by the Government to that industry by the proposed expenditure of £1,500,000,000 in the production of armaments. The Seconder of the Amendment made a more friendly speech, and I believe that, on the whole, he is friendly towards the proposal for the reduction of hours. He brought in this argument of wages, and, as already pointed out by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander), we spent hours upstairs passing legislation fixing the hours of labour of women and young children without any regard to wages at all. Parliament is constantly compelled to interfere, and we seek Parliamentary


interference, to reduce the hours of labour because of the millions of workers who are working in excess of 48 hours a week, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth said, are working 50, 60, 70, and, I believe, in some cases, nearly 80 hours per week, and in some cases without any extra pay in the shape of overtime.
The Motion has been widely and wisely drafted. It asks this House to support the policy for securing a substantial reduction in working hours. If we can get unanimous support for this Motion, it will give impetus to the great movement for the reduction of working hours. The Amendment is in favour of the reduction of hours where practicable without any reduction in earnings, but it expresses the view that any adjustments should be left for settlement by negotiation. Where practicable." I know of few industries at the present time, having regard to our prosperity—we have been told repeatedly from the Government Front Bench that the National Government has created prosperity—that could not bring about a substantial reduction in working hours. There is no time like the present for bringing about a reform of this character, when we have such a large measure of prosperity. Professor Sargant Florence, the great advocate of the 40-hour week, recently said:
I am an enthusiastic advocate of shorter and even shorter hours, but I believe that the reduction should be made, as it usually has been made, in time of prosperity, but in depressed trades shorter hours with the same weekly wage are a doubtful remedy for unemployment.
[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I have not hesitated to quote the last part of the Professor's opinion. Now is the time, when we are prosperous, to make a change which industry could afford to make, and which would not have that disturbing and dislocating effect upon industry which it is imagined would follow.
Reference has been made to the fact that reduction of earnings is not mentioned in our Motion. It is not mentioned because the Labour party will be no party to a reduction of working hours followed by a reduction in wages. A reduction in earnings would partly defeat the purpose and value of a reduction of working hours. We must maintain the standard rates of the earnings of the workers if we reduce the working hours. We do not say that

this proposal would be a solution for unemployment, but we believe that it would absorb a large number of the unemployed, and if we increase the purchasing power of a larger number of people in employment it will add to the prosperity of the country.

Mr. A. Hopkinson: The hon. Member referred to wages. Does he mean money wages or real wages?

Mr. Short: I am not going to be drawn into that argument. I am talking of wages and earnings. If a man is receiving £2 a week for a 47-hour week he will receive £2 a week for a 40-hour week. That is what the workmen and the men in-the-street understand. I want to be fair. It would not be sufficient to reduce hours and increase wages if there was no increase in production. You must have a corresponding increase in production, and I believe that as a result of the reduction of hours there would follow greater efficiency, a better standard of health, greater keenness and a correspondingly greater measure of production.
I turn to deal with the argument about negotiation. We have always heard this argument. It is a delaying, a putting off argument; a non-intervention argument. Let me point out that we have 4,000,000 workers who are organised or a little over; and some 13,000,000 insured persons. There are over 20,000,000 people in occupations. We have millions of workers in this country—I am speaking of adults, not of young people—who are unorganised, there is nobody to negotiate for them and nobody to negotiate with. What does the Parliamentary Secretary propose to do in this case? He quoted cases where the industry is well and efficiently organised. We know that the iron and steel industry has reduced the hours to 44 by negotiation. We know that there are other industries which have reduced working hours as a result of negotiation, but we have failed lamentably and miserably to secure any improvement in the hours of the great masses of the workers who are unorganised in our various industries. We desire the State to intervene. We desire it to follow the example of other countries. We desire that this country should withdraw its opposition at Geneva to international agreements and international conventions. We desire the State to lay down the


maximum number of hours; and industry is quite capable of adjusting itself to the changes which will be effected. The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. McCorquodale) referred to France. Is he seriously going to tell the House that the dislocation and disturbances in France are due to the 40hour week?

Mr. McCorquodale: I am.

Mr. Short: The hon. Member admitted that the business in France, to which he referred, after years of decline in profits this year made an even balance despite the 40-hour week.

Mr. McCorquodale: Yes, by putting up their prices by a large amount, and that is what we do not want to see in this country. The rise in their case was over 30 per cent.

Mr. Short: The hon. Member has not reduced the hours of workers in his own industry in this country to 40, but he has put up his prices in order to meet a small reduction of hours. If there is any crisis in France it is not due to the 40hour week, but to the jiggery-pokery work of financiers. [Interruption.] Evidently I have said something of interest. No doubt there is a great deal of underground opposition by employers. There is no doubt that the mechanisation of industry coupled with rationalisation has thrown, and is throwing, a large number of people out of work. There are one or two quotations that I would like to give to the House. Sir Josiah Stamp said:
Men have been pushed out by machinery far more quickly than they have been absorbed elsewhere.
The "Statist," after making an inquiry into reduction, said:
This increase in productivity of each worker has gone hand in hand with an increase in the number of unemployed.
Sir Harold Bowden said:
Machinery has been for many years visibly displacing men from employment in all industries. No economic processes can ever find remunerative work for them elsewhere, for science is progressively diminishing the demand for man-power.
The Parliamentary Secretary was not very helpful in his remarks. He was sympathetic, and said that he appreciated the strain, and would like to see the number of unemployed reduced. Let me point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that

we have never said that this reform would in itself terminate unemployment. We have made the suggestion in this Motion that it would absorb a number of unemployed and that there would be a corresponding social improvement in their lives, and that the community would benefit considerably. The Parliamentary Secretary talked about freedom. There is no dispute with us as far as real freedom is concerned. This party stands for freedom, and is bitterly opposed to anything in the nature of Fascism or to any system which would interfere with the voluntary organisation of trade unions or of this Parliament. But does the Parliamentary Secretary mean freedom for children to continue to work these scandalous hours mentioned by my hon. Friend? Does he mean freedom for adults to continue to work 60, 70 and 80 hours a week? Does he mean freedom for large numbers of the working class to work long hours, in some cases without any increased payment for overtime? The hon. Gentleman has introduced the word "freedom" to sidetrack us, but he will not accomplish his object. As to costs of production, the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment said that to implement the 40-hour week in the engineering industry would mean an increase of 6 per cent. in the costs of production. That figure is quoted in the engineering employers' and workers' reports. Does anybody think that any industry will go under because of an increase of 6 per cent. in the costs of production? If there is any dispute, let me read what was said by Sir Malcolm Stewart on this matter. He said:
How can industrialists seek to reduce unemployment Surely by working shorter hours and employing more men. We should not wait for international agreements which may be long-delayed. Many will say that shorter hours will place an unbearable burden on industry by increasing the costs of production and that the export of our products will be made more difficult. It is true that initially the costs of production would be somewhat increased, but I am convinced the advantages to industry from the ensuing improved efficiency, particularly where the working ours could be condensed into a five-working-day week, and from decreased unemployment, would go far to mitigate the increase of costs, once experience is gained. The home trade would be generally stimulated by the greater spending power of the additional numbers employed, and it is almost impossible to over-estimate the gain through the improved morale brought about by the exchange of despair for hope. Better efficiency and a more prosperous home market would


react favourably on costs of many products exported.
That is a statement from a very eminent and distinguished employer of labour which, to my mind, is convincing. I believe that industry to-day is more capable of making the adjustments than ever in its history. I pay this tribute. I know there is a lot of bad employers but I believe that the majority, well organised in their employers' federations, though there may be diehards here and there, as the Mover of the Amendment said, in the main are quick witted, are progressive, are ready to make the change, and they are capable, because of their efficiency, to make the necessary adjustments should there be a reduction in the hours which we are advocating. Though I have not to-day the same association that I used to have by way of negotiations, I have had as great experience of meeting employers individually and collectively as any man in this House, and I have seen a marked change in the mental attitude of many of them. I think it is a reflection on many of the employers of the country when we say that they are incapable of making the necessary adjustments that would follow, and very rightly follow, if we achieved this reform.
No one can deny that there has been a great increase in productivity. In the mining industry, mechanisation of the industry is going on apace—55 per cent. of the output, I think the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Paling) said, was due to machinery. The output per man is increasing, but neither in the coal industry nor in any of the industries, except a few, have the workers been compensated for the greater output, the greater intensity, of their labour. On that ground and others I venture to suggest that the House would do well to support this Motion and to achieve ultimately this reform.
Mention has been made of Boots. I have read the document of Sir Richard Redmayne with interest and pleasure. Costs have not increased; there has been a great improvement in the health, in the contentment, and in the happiness, of the great masses of people who work for that firm. Absenteeism has been reduced and there has been, as I say, a vast improvement throughout Boots' industry. I venture to ask the House to support this Motion. I know full well that the Mover

and Seconder of the Amendment will be satisfied with having expressed their views. I hope they will withdraw the Amendment and let the House of Commons be united in its demand for a substantial reduction in working hours, which will not only bring happiness to great masses of the workpeople but be followed by vast social improvement for the country in general.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. Hayday: In the few minutes that remain I wish to refer briefly to two very specious arguments which have been used from the Government side. One is that in the increased competition which would be met with in the international markets British industry would be handicapped if a shortening of hours took place. The other argument came from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, who has suddenly found a new role—that of special advocate for the trade unions. I have been present at Geneva at all the international discussions on the subject of the 40-hour week. All my actions there were dictated by decisions of the great British trade union movement. We have asked that certain conventions should be ratified by the various Governments concerned and I wish emphatically to call attention to what I consider to be the gross hypocrisy of the British Government of the day in their pretence of sympathy with the shorter hour movement, when that pretence is compared with their attitude at Geneva. At Geneva it was once a pleasure to imagine that the British Government representative was in the lead in supporting international measures for the amelioration of the lot of the workers. But on the subject-matter of the shorter working week, never but once and that was in the case of the sheet glass convention have they voted in support of the eight hours proposal.
I ask the Government here and now what is going to be their position in relation to the textile convention which was passed in spite of their opposition? It is not as though the British Government were being asked to do what other countries are unwilling to do. America absorbed 8,000,000 of her unemployed when she brought in the shortening of the weekly hours to as low as 36 in some cases, with a very much enhanced weekly income for the workers concerned. It is


not as though in France there had been any tragic results from putting into operation the 40-hour week. It is really the case that Great Britain, which at one time claimed that she would give better conditions if the backward countries could only be brought up to our level, can no longer take that position. While America and France, as well as New Zealand and others of our Dominions and Colonies, support the shorter hour movement, we find that they are in one group while Great Britain is in an opposition group in company with Japan, China and India, supporting reactionary countries. We are now taking part with the backward

countries and can no longer claim the pride of place which we used to claim. It is only so much hypocrisy to talk from the Government Benches, amid cheers almost of compassion, about the Government's love for the trade union movement and their great desire to bring about reforms, when in fact they are most active in opposing those reforms when they get the opportunity of doing so.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 123; Noes, 139·

Division No. 3.]
AYES.
[11.0 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Naylor, T. E.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)
Noel-Baker, P. J.


Adamson, W. M.
Groves, T. E.
Oliver, G. H.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Guest, Dr. L. H. (Islington, N.)
Parker, J.


Amnion, C. G.
Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)
Parkinson, J. A.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Hardie, Agnes
Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Harvey, T. E. (Eng. Univ's.)
Price, M. P.


Bonfield, J. W.
Hayday, A.
Quibell, D. J. K.


Barnes, A. J.
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Richards, R. (Wrexham)


Barr, J.
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Ridley, G.


Batey, J.
Hills, A. (Pontefract)
Riley, B.


Bellenger, F. J.
Hopkin, D.
Ritson, J


Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)


Benson, G.
Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Bevan, A.
Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.
Seely, Sir H. M.


Broad, F. A.
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)
Shinwell, E.


Bromfield, W.
Kelly, W. T.
Short. A.


Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Simpson, F. B.


Buchanan, G.
Kirby, B. V.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Burke, W. A.
Kirkwood, D.
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)


Cape, T.
Lathan, G.
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Charleton, H. C.
Lawson, J. J.
Sorensen, R- W.


Cluse, W. S.
Leach, W.
Stephen, C.


Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford
Lee, F.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Daggar, G.
Leonard, W.
Thurtle, E.


Dalton, H.
Leslie, J. R.
Tinker, J. J.


Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Logan, D. G.
Viant, S. P.


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Lunn, W.
Walkden, A. G.


Debbie, W.
McEntee, V. La T.
Walker, J.


Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)
McGhee, H. G.
Watson, W. McL,


Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)
MacLaren, A
Westwood, J.


Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.
MacNeill, Weir, L.
White, H. Graham


Frankel, D.
Mainwaring, W. H.
Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)


Gallacher, W.
Mander, G. le M.
Wilkinson, Ellen


Gardner, B. W.
Marshall, F.
Williams, T. (Don Valley)


George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)
Mathers, G.
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


Gibson, R. (Greenock)
Maxton, J.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)
Messer, F.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Green, W. H. (Deptford)
Milner, Major J.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
Montague, F.



Grenfell, D. R.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)
Muff, G.
Mr. Paling and Mr. Sexton.




NOES.


Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)
Bossom, A. C.
Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)


Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)
Boulton, W. W.
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)


Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.
Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Courtauld, Major J. S.


Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)
Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)
Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)
Cox, H. B. T.


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.
Butler, R. A.
Cross, R. H.


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)
Carver, Major W. H.
Crossley, A. C.


Beechman, N. A.
Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)
Crowder, J. F. E.


Beit, Sir A. L.
Gazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Cruddas, Col, B.


Birchall, Sir J. D.
Channon, H.
De Chair, S. S.


Blair, Sir R.
Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Denville, Alfred




Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)
Rowlands, G.


Dugdale, Captain T. L.
Kimball, L.
Royds, Admiral P. M. R.


Duggan, H. J.
Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)
Russell, Sir Alexander


Eckersley, P. T.
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Salmon, Sir I.


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Salt, E. W.


Elliston, Capt. G. S.
Liddalt, W. S.
Samuel, M. R. A.


Eimley, Viscount
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.
Selley, H. R.


Emery, J. F.
Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)
Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)


Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
McKie, J. H.
Smith, L. W. (Hallam)


Everard, W. L.
Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Fox, Sir G. W. G.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Somervell. Sir D. B. (Crewe)


Furness, S. N.
Marsden, Commander A.
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Fyfe, D. P. M.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Spens. W. P.


Ganzoni, Sir J.
Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Storey, S.


Grant-Ferris, R.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)


Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
Mitcheson, Sir G. G.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Gridley, Sir A. B.
Morris, J. P. (Salford, N.)
Sutcliffe, H.


Grimston, R. V.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Tasker, Sir R. I.


Guest, Lieut.-Colonel H. (Drake)
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.


Guinness, T. L. E. B.
Munro, P.
Turton, R. H.


Hannah, I. C.
Nall, Sir J.
Wakefield, W. W.


Herbord, A.
Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.
Walker-Smith, Sir J.


Hepworth, J.
Nicolson, Hon. H. G.
Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan


Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
O'Connor, Sir Terence J.
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Higgs, W. F.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Warrender, Sir V.


Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Holmes, J. S.
Palmer, G. E. H.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Hope, Captain Hon. A.O. J.
Patrick, C. M.
Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)


Hopkinson, A.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Horsbrugh, Florence
Plugge, Capt. L. F.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Hewitt, Dr. A. B.
Procter, Major H. A.
Wood, Hon. C. I. C.


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)



Hunter, T.
Rayner, Major R. H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Hutchinson, G. C.
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)
Wing-Commander Wright and


James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.
Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)
Mr. McCorquodale.


Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Ropner, Colonel L.

Question proposed, "That the proposed words be there added."

Mr. Ellis Smith: rose—

It being after Eleven of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

ESTIMATES.

Ordered,
That a Select Committee be appointed to examine such of the Estimates presented to this House as may seem fit to the Committee, and to suggest the form in which the Estimates shall be presented for examination, and to report what, if any, economies consistent with the policy implied in those Estimates may be effected therein.

Ordered, That the Committee do consist of Twenty-eight Members.

Mr. Barr, Sir Charles Barrie, Mr. Benson, Captain Sir William Brass, Major Dower, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Ede, Mr. Owen Evans, Sir Arnold Gridley, Sir Patrick Hannon, Lieut.-Colonel Heneage, Mr. Leach, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Lovat-Fraser, Mr. Magnay, Captain Peter Macdonald, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore, Mr. Godfrey Nicholson, Mr. Parker, Mr. Peat, Captain Ramsay, Sir Isidore Salmon, Major Shaw, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Benjamin Smith, Sir Robert Smith, Commander Sir Archibald Southby, and Mr. Watkins nominated Members of the Committee.

Ordered,
That seven be the quorum.

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records, and to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House.

Ordered,
That the Committee have power, if they so determine, to appoint one or more Sub-Committees, and in that event to apportion-the subjects referred to the Committee between the Sub-Committees, any of which shall have the full powers of the undivided Committee; and that four shall he the quorum of any of the Sub-Committees.

Ordered,
That the Committee do report any evidence taken by the Committee or by any of the Sub-Committees to the House.

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to report from time to time."—[Mr. James Stuart.]

The Orders of the Day were read, and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]

Adjourned accordingly at Ten Minutes after Eleven o' Clock.